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A  Snuff-box 
Full  of  Trees 

Some  Apocryphal  Essays 


W.  D.  ELLWANGER 

Author  of  "  The  Oriental  Rug  "  and 
"  A  Summer  Snowflake  " 


New  York  : 

Dodd,  Mead  &  Company 
1909 


I 


In  Memory  Of 

Fred  David  Eberhart 

U.  S.  Marine  Corps 
Saipan  —  June  16,  1944 


Copyrighted, 
by 

W.  D.  ELLWANGER 


The   Genesee  Press 

The  Post  Express  Printing  Company 

Rochester,  New  Tart 


S 


•2.  C  A  < 

J>  D  u 


66 

Contents 


1.  A  Snuff-box  Full  of  Trees. 

2.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

3.  The  Egotism  of  the  Earth.  ~ 

4.  Some  Religious  Helps  to  a  Literary  Style. 

5.  Suicide  and  the  Bible. 

6.  A  Pretty  Girl's  Shoe. 

7.  An  Incident  in  Book  Collecting. 


A  Snuff-box  Full 
of  Trees 


/CALIFORNIA  gave  to  the  world  in  1849 
^^^  not  only  the  most  wondrous  wealth  known 
up  to  that  time,  but  also  the  tallest  trees  that  ever 
grew  toward  heaven.  Somewhere  in  the  early 
fifties  G.  H.  Woodruff  joined  the  throng  of 
gold  hunters  and  went  West  to  seek  his  fortune. 
So  far  as  is  known  he  found  no  gold,  but,  as 
the  story  runs,  after  a  year  or  more  of  disap- 
pointments, he  found  himself  one  day  in  the 
forest  primeval,  forlorn  and  disconsolate.  He 
threw  himself  on  the  ground,  and,  yielding  to 
despair,  gazed  up  into  the  treetops  for  help  or 
resignation.  Above  him  towered  the  big  trees 
of  the  world,  the  grand  Giganteas.  You  may 
call  them,  as  you  please,  Gigantea,  Washing- 
tonia,  or  Wellingtonia.  Their  generic  name  is 
an  arbitrary  one,  and  it  is  still  a  disputed  ques- 
tion whether  they  were  first  found  and  named 
by  an  Englishman  or  an  American.  No  worry 
of  nomenclature  disturbed  Mr.  Woodruff",  but 
he  knew  trees.  They  had  been  part  and  par- 


A  SNUFF-BOX  FULL  OF  TREES 

eel  of  his  education,  and  as  he  lay  on  his  back 
and  looked  up  into  their  glorious  heights,  he 
appreciated  their  grandeur  and  rejoiced  in  their 
beauty.  Also  he  noticed  that  the  squirrels 
were  nibbling  at  the  cones  above  him,  and 
dropping  some  of  the  seed  shells  at  his  feet. 
He  thought  that  these  seeds  might  be  propa- 
gated successfully,  and  gathered  a  number  of 
them.  These  he  put  into  a  snuff-box  and  at 
the  first  opportunity  sent  them  to  Ellwanger  & 
Barry,  nurserymen,  at  Rochester,  N.  Y.  The 
snuff-box  came  by  pony  express  across  the  con- 
tinent, and  the  express  charges  for  the  little 
packet  were  $25.  The  seeds  were  duly  sown 
and  propagated  by  Messrs.  Ellwanger  &  Barry, 
as  appears  from  a  letter  in  which  they  said : 

January  n,  1855. 

We  have  already  one  box  of  the  seed  sowed 
in  our  rose  house  under  glass,  a  nice  tempera- 
ture of  about  50  to  60  degrees.  If  it  will  do 
well  anywhere  it  must  do  there.  We  shall 
sow  all  in  boxes  under  glass,  as  the  plants  will 
be  less  liable  to  damp  antf  wither  off.  We  have 
agreed  to  grow  the  plants  on  shares  as  pro- 
posed, but  if  you  prefer  to  sell  it  you  might 
name  your  price  for  it. 


A  SNUFF-BOX  FULL  OF  TREES 

More  seeds  were  afterward  gathered  and  sent 
and  propagated,  with  results  shown  in  a  second 
letter : 

January  26,  1856. 

We  did  all  in  our  power  with  them ;  some  of 
the  seeds  never  vegetated  and  some  came 
slowly.  They  have  been  coming  through  the 
ground  all  summer.  We  have  succeeded  in 
obtaining  about  4000  plants,  all  of  which  are 
out  of  danger,  we  think;  they  are  all  in  pots, 
and  as  there  is  no  demand  yet  for  them  in  this 
country  we  have  shipped  400  to  England  to  be 
sold,  and  shall  send  more  as  needed.  We  in- 
tend to  advertise  them  here  this  spring  at  $2 
per  plant. 

So  much  for  the  finding  of  these  seeds  and 
their  propagation.  Their  subsequent  growth 
and  development,  and  their  dispersion  from 
Rochester  over  all  of  Europe,  make  an- 
other chapter  in  their  story.  If  it  seems 
a  far  cry  from  these  little  potted  pigmies  to 
the  giants  of  the  forest,  it  is  necessary  only 
to  turn  to  Messrs.  Ellwanger  &  Barry's  cata- 
logue of  1857  for  encouragement  as  to  their 
possibilities.  In  that  catalogue  these  plants 
were  thus  offered  for  sale:  "Washingtonia 
Gigantea,  the  Celebrated  Big  Tree  of  Califor- 


A  SNUFF-BOX  FULL  OF  TREES 

nia;  Wellingtonia  of  the  English,  and  Sequoia 
of  the  French;  one  of  the  most  majestic  trees 
in  the  world.  Specimens  have  been  measured 
upward  of  300  feet  in  height  and  thirty-two 
feet  in  diameter  three  feet  from  the  ground. 
We  think  it  will  prove  hardy  here,  as  several 
specimens  stood  out  unprotected  last  winter. 
Mr.  Reid,  of  New  Jersey,  has  also  found  it 
hardy  with  him.  One  dollar  to  two  dollars." 
But  either  this  advertisement  was  too  modest 
or  the  commendation  too  conservative,  for  the 
plants  found  few  buyers  here.  Even  in  1856 
the  growers  had  to  look  to  foreign  markets  for 
the  sale  of  the  greatest  native  American  indus- 
try, if  a  big  tree  of  California,  300  feet  high, 
may  be  so  characterized.  William  Skirving, 
nurseryman,  of  Liverpool,  England,  bought 
the  first  hundred  of  the  plants  in  that 
year.  Later  he  bought  250  more,  then 
again  500  and  500  and  500  and  500, 
making  in  all  2350.  So  the  squirrel  seeds 
began  to  take  root  and  grow  and  spread  in 
English  soil.  And  Mr.  Skirving's  purchase 
proved  profitable  to  him  in  more  ways  than 
one.  For  he  has  told  that  when  the  first  in- 
voice of  plants  arrived  he  was  quite  ill  and  con- 


A  SNUFF-BOX  FULL  OF  TREES 

fined  to  his  bed.  His  head  gardener  was  so 
impressed  with  the  beauty  of  the  plants  that  he 
brought  a  box  of  them  for  admiration  to  Mr. 
Skirving's  bedside.  The  very  sight  of  them, 
Mr.  Skirving  declared,  made  him  a  well  man 
again.  This  was  his  own  story  to  Mr.  Ell- 
wanger  when  the  latter  visited  him,  and  the  cir- 
cumstances may  go  to  prove  that  there  is  more 
healing  balsam  and  resinous  health  in  the  ever- 
greens of  California  than  Bret  Harte  has  ever 
dared  to  sing.  Mr.  Skirving  went  on  to  say 
that  shortly  afterward  a  certain  duke  whose  es- 
tates were  in  Wales  happened  to  call  upon  him. 
The  duke  had  a  fondness  for  conifers,  as  is 
characteristic  of  wealthy  and  exalted  personages, 
it  being  well  understood  that  far  beyond  roses 
and  lilies  and  orchids  and  all  the  shrubs  and 
trees  that  ever  grew,  a  taste  for  conifers  is  the 
supreme  refinement.  It  is  the  top  note  in  the 
gamut  of  all  songs  of  beauty  and  nature,  whether 
people  most  love  books  or  trees  or  pictures  or 
porcelains  or  whatsoever  it  may  be.  The  late 
Charles  A.  Dana,  who  knew  most  everything 
that  was  good,  knew  this  also,  and,  it  is  said, 
loved  his  evergreens  more  than  all  his  other 
treasures.  But,  be  that  as  it  may,  in  the  course 


A  SNUFF-BOX  FULL  OF  TRE&S 

of  conversation,  the  duke  boasted  to  Mr. 
Skirving  that  he  had  recently  made  a  find  of  a 
few  plants  of  the  Wellingtonia,  for  which  he 
had  paid  two  guineas  apiece.  These  he  bought 
at  Veitch's,  he  of  the  Ampelopsis,  to  describe 
him  familiarly,  for  surely  the  Ampelopsis 
Veitchii  is  a  household  word.  Mr.  Skirving 
promptly  offered  to  sell  the  duke  any  number 
at  one  guinea,  and  the  duke  as  quickly  bought 
a  hundred,  which  he  planted  in  an  avenue.  If 
they  have  grown  and  thrived,  as  is  said,  they 
must  make  an  imposing  sight  by  this  time. 

Of  the  plants  which  Messrs.  Ellwanger  & 
Barry  propagated,  several  hundred  were  also 
sent  to  a  well-known  English  nurseryman, 
Thomas  Rivers.  Of  the  dispersion  of  these 
there  is  no  trace.  Other  dukes  and  potentates 
may  have  purchased  them.  The  following 
record,  however,  is  interesting.  It  is  quoted 
from  the  memoirs  of  Tennyson,  recently  pub- 
lished. In  the  first  chapter  of  volume  2  the 
poet's  son  writes  that  the  great  event  of  1864 
was  Garibaldi's  visit  to  the  Tennysons. 

"My  mother  wrote  in  April,"  he  says,  "A. 
and  I  went  out  to  fix  a  spot  in  our  garden 
where  the  Wellingtonia  should  be  planted  by 

6 


A  SNUFF-BOX  FULL  OF  TREES 

him  (given  to  A.  by  the  Duchess  of  Suther- 
land and  raised  by  her  from  a  cone  that  had 
been  shot  from  a  tree  300  feet  high  in  Cali- 
fornia)." 

Some  of  the  circumstances  are  then  told  con- 
nected with  the  planting  of  the  tree  and  the 
ceremonies  attending  it,  as  graced  by  Garibal- 
di's presence  and  favor.  Many  strangers  were 
there,  and  "when  the  tree  was  planted  they 
gave  a  shout."  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
shout  was  in  honor  of  the  tree  itself,  as  well  as 
for  its  sponsor  or  foster-father  or  either  of  its 
worthy  namesakes. 

So,  from  Mr.  Woodruff's  snuff-box  have 
come  almost  all  important  specimens  of  the 
Gigantea  in  Europe  and  in  the  United  States 
east  of  the  Rocky  mountains.  You  can  find 
them  in  the  botanical  gardens  in  Bordeaux,  at 
Kew,  in  Madrid,  in  Switzerland  and  elsewhere. 
There  are  one  or  two  in  Boston.  Of  the 
original  propagation  a  group  of  seven  fine 
specimens  are  growing  in  the  home  nursery 
grounds  of  Ellwanger  &  Barry.  These  trees 
are  now  about  fifty  feet  high,  and,  except  that 
our  winter  winds  are  sometimes  unkind  to 
them,  and  the  heads  of  one  or  two  show  signs 

7 


A  SNUFF-BOX  FULL  OF  TREES 

of  baldness,  they  bear  their  years  and  honors 
well.  They  are  somewhat  shielded  by  neigh- 
boring firs,  yet  they  doubtless  miss  the  protec- 
tion which  favored  them  in  their  original  habitat. 
But  nothing  can  rob  them  of  their  dignity.  So 
long  as  they  live  they  will  have  a  majesty  of 
their  own.  They  must  have  known  and  as- 
serted their  importance  when  they  were  hardly 
inches  high  in  the  rose  house,  for  even  then 
they  had  a  fair  money  value,  and  in  1865  Ell- 
wanger  &  Barry  paid  to  Mr.  Woodruff  as  his 
half  profits  for  his  seed  gathering  $1030.60. 

It  may  be  added  that  no  similar  large  propa- 
gation of  seed  has  been  attempted  here,  or,  if 
accomplished,  would  be  likely  to  prove  finan- 
cially successful.  Seed  is  now  easily  obtainable, 
but  the  plants  would  no  longer  be  a  novelty  in 
the  horticultural  market. 


The  Kingdom  of 
Heaven 


TN   childhood,   heaven    seems   to   us   only  a 

wondrous  sea  into  whose  fathomless  blue 
our  eyes  sink  of  a  summer's  day.  Or,  at  night, 
we  look  up  to  it  with  greater  awe,  and  dimly 
realize  its  impenetrable  depths  as  a  mere  back- 
ground to  the  shining  stars. 

Youth  and  young  manhood,  or  womanhood, 
gave  us  less  time  for  the  consideration  of  the 
heavens.  Matters  of  seeming  greater  impor- 
tance called  for  our  constant  consideration. 

It  is  only  later  in  life  or  when  some  death 
comes  to  us  and  smites  us  as  with  a  sudden 
blow  that  we  bring  up,  shocked  and  stunned, 
and  slowly  begin  to  think. 

The  wife  or  husband  dies,  the  brother  or 
sister,  the  father  or  mother,  the  child,  or  the 
friend  and  right  hand  of  our  very  life.  Tears 
and  memories  are  the  first  relief  which 
nature  gives,  and  hers  is  a  most  kindly,  tem- 
porary comfort.  But  it  lasts  only  for  a  little 
time,  and  often  has  its  dangerous  reactions. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN 

Philosophy  or  religion  must  be  called  upon 
for  better  and  more  lasting  consolation. 

The  aid  of  philosophy  will  often  prove  ef- 
fective and  harden  our  hearts  to  the  necessary 
evil.  But  it  only  cauterizes  the  wound,  ruth- 
lessly and  cruelly,  as  with  a  hot  iron.  It  does 
not  soothe,  assuage,  or  heal. 

Let  us  consider  if  religion  will  do  more  for 
us,  and  let  us  ask  ourselves  some  questions  if 
we  dare. 

What  is  our  first  thought  when  the  great 
loss  comes  and,  as  we  will  suppose,  our  best 
friend  dies  in  the  full  power  of  his  manhood  ? 
It  is  the  unreality  of  it,  the  impossibility  of  it, 
and  the  utter,  wanton  waste  of  such  a  life. 
Rebellion  at  Providence  is  the  first  natural 
feeling,  and  then  grief  follows  in  its  various 
stages  and  forms  of  expression.  After  that 
there  is  sure  to  come  a  most  intense  longing 
to  see  our  friend  just  once  more,  to  assure  him 
of  our  lasting  love,  to  explain  this  or  that  old 
misunderstanding,  to  do  and  say  a  thousand 
things  which  were  left  undone  and  unsaid  while 
he  was  still  with  us.  The  pity  of  this  is  very 
sore,  and  the  uselessness  of  our  regrets  makes 
keener  the  heart-ache. 


10 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN 

Does  not  religion  come  to  our  aid  here  ? 
and  does  it  not  tell  us  that  our  friend  is  now 
in  heaven,  that  the  fullness  of  wisdom  has 
come  to  him,  and  that  he  knows  and  under- 
stands ?  There  is  no  need  for  our  excuses  or 
explanations.  He  has  gained  the  knowledge 
of  the  very  secrets  of  our  heart. 

This  question  may  then  arise :  Has  our 
friend  gone  at  once  to  this  heaven  ?  or  must 
his  soul  lie  dormant  until  the  final  judgment 
day  when  the  last  of  us  shall  be  called  to 
account  ?  Without  pausing  to  weigh  and  con- 
sider sectarian  tenets  on  this  subject  and  with- 
out attempting  to  explain  or  reconcile  any 
scriptural  differences  on  this  point,  it  would 
seem  that  an  immortal  soul  cannot  suffer  even 
a  temporary  death  and  must  win  its  heaven  as 
soon  as  it  leaves  its  mortal  body.  And  this  is 
comforting,  for  it  assures  us  that  our  friend 
not  only  knows  and  understands,  but  knows 
now,  in  the  time  of  our  remorse  and  sorrow. 
Our  reconciliation  is  instant  and  absolute. 

But  the  solace  of  our  religion  goes  still  far- 
ther, and  says  that  our  friend  has  only  "  gone 
before,"  that  we  may  follow  and  meet  again. 
The  hope  of  heaven  gives  no  greater  com- 

ii 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN 

fort  than  this,  and  no  stronger  incentive  to  so 
live,  that  we,  too,  may  gain  to  it  when  we  die, 
in  our  turn.  Stevenson  has  most  beautifully 
expressed  this  in  one  of  his  poems,  of  which 
this  is  but  a  verse : 

He  is  not  dead,  this  friend, — not  dead, — 

But  in  the  path  we  mortals  tread 

Got  some  few  trifling  steps  ahead 

And  nearer  to  the  end. 

So,  that  you,  too,  once  past  the  bend 

Shall  meet  again,  as  face  to  face,  this  friend 

You  fancy  dead. 

Now  comes  that  most  momentous  question 
at  which  we  hesitate  :  How  shall  we  meet  our 
friend  thus  face  to  face  ?  How  shall  we  know 
him  or  find  him ?  Our  most  natural,  present  ear- 
nest prayer  is  that  we  may  meet  him  and  greet 
him  just  as  we  knew  him  and  loved  him,  not 
as  an  unimaginable  angel,  not  as  a  being  so 
celestial  and  spiritualized  as  to  be  altogether 
above  our  kith  and  kin  and  ken.  This  is  the 
human  cry,  wrung  from  our  human  sorrow, 
which  Stevenson  caught  and  phrased  for  our 
comfort.  But  the  Bible  hardly  warrants  this 
form  of  consolation. 

Saint  Paul  in  his  letter  to  the  Corinthians 
writes :  "  But  some  man  will  say,  How  are  the 


12 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN 

dead  raised  up  ?  and  with  what  body  do  they 
come?  Thou  fool!  That  which  thou  sowest 
is  not  quickened  except  it  die.  And  that  which 
thou  sowest,  thou  sowest  not  that  body  that 
shall  be.  .  .  But  God  giveth  it  a  body  as 
it  hath  pleased  him.  .  .  It  is  sown  in  cor- 
ruption; it  is  raised  in  incorruption;"  and  then 
follows  all  that  this  inspired  apostle  has  so 
beautifully  expressed  as  to  the  "body  terres- 
trial" and  "celestial." 

This  must  be  so.  We  shall  never  see  our 
friend  again  in  the  same  familiar  form  that  we 
knew  him  here  on  earth. 

The  Bible  proves  this  again  in  Christ's  re- 
sponse to  the  question  of  the  Sadducees : 
"  Whose  wife  shall  she  be  of  the  seven  ?  " 
The  answer  was  :  "  Ye  4do  err,  not  knowing 
the  Scripture  or  the  power  of  God.  For  in  the 
resurrection,  they  neither  marry,  nor  are  given 
in  marriage,  but  are  as  the  angels  of  God." 

If  then,  we  shall  meet  again  this  friend,  it 
needs  must  be  on  quite  a  different  plane  from 
that  of  our  human,  mundane  existence.  And 
if  at  first  this  seems  an  added  sorrow  and  not 
a  consolation,  it  is  only  because  of  the  limita- 
tions of  our  present  worldly  thoughts.  To 

'3 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVED 

quote  from  St.  Paul  once  more :  "  Now  we 
see  through  a  glass  darkly;  but  then  face  to 
face — now  I  know  in  part;  but  then  shall  I 
know  even  as  also  I  am  known." 

That  we  love  a  man  for  his  faults  is  not  true. 
It  is  only  a  conventional  expression.  It  is 
only  the  flattering  unction  which  we  lay  to 
our  souls  that  the  flaws  and  frailties  of  another 
condone  our  own. 

We  ourselves  must  be  changed  in  order  to 
win  to  heaven  and  join  our  changed  friends 
there.  So  stupendous  a  miracle  cannot  be 
wrought  except  under  new  and  unknown  con- 
ditions. But  be  these  as  they  may,  they  need 
only  purge  from  us  the  dross,  the  crudities, 
the  sin  of  human  life.  They  may  still  leave 
us  of  our  mortal  character  "  whatsoever  things 
are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  honest,  what- 
soever things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatso- 
ever things  are  of  good  report."  "  If  there 
be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  be  any  praise," 
we  are  told  to  "  think  on  these  things."  And 
what  shall  we  think  but  that  these  qualities, 
these  characteristics,  these  virtues  must  endure 
beyond  the  grave  ? 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN 

So,  I  believe  that  we  may  hope  to  meet 
again  our  friend,  much  the  same  for  all  our 
mutual  transformation  and  regeneration,  but 
with  all  differences  forgotten,  all  faults  for- 
given and  our  friendship  firm  fixed  forever. 

There  is,  perhaps,  another  disquieting 
thought :  What  will  become  of  our  friend 
in  heaven?  and  what  peace  and  happiness, 
what  transports  of  delight  will  he  find  there  to 
compensate  him  for  his  woes  and  troubles  here 
on  earth  ? 

He  will  find  there,  as  may  be,  a  father, 
mother,  wife,  sister,  or  brother,  gone  before. 
Happy  as  such  a  reunion  must  be,  happy  even 
as  the  meeting  for  which  we  hope,  how  lone- 
some must  his  poor  soul  find  itself  among  the 
myriads  in  heaven.  In  the  communion  of 
saints  will  our  friend  joy  in  meeting  with  the 
early  Christian  martyrs  or  the  forgotten  heroes 
of  history  of  long  ago  ?  Would  he  not  much 
more  wish  and  wait  for  us  ? 

What  is  this  communion  of  saints  in  heaven  ? 
And  how  shall  the  elect  of  many  tribes  and 
nations  and  the  foreordained  of  past  and  pres- 
ent centuries  and  the  ages  yet  to  come  be  gath- 
ered there  ? 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN 

The  only  answer  that  occurs  is  that  which 
Christ  himself  gave :  "In  my  Father's  house 
are  many  mansions.  I  go  to  prepare  a  place 
for  you." 

What  this  place  may  be,  this  mansion  for 
each  of  us,  our  God  only  knows.  Our  most 
intense  and  spiritualized,  rapt  and  religious 
thoughts  and  dreams  can  give  no  picture  of  it. 

But  even  our  little  minds  may  grasp  some 
idea  of  its  possibilities  if  we  will  look  up  to 
the  heavens  at  night,  as  we  did  in  our  child- 
hood, and  estimate  the  millions  of  worlds  in 
the  Milky  Way.  Can  we  not  easily  believe 
that  our  great  Creator,  as  one  of  his  plans  for 
our  eternal  bliss,  might  prepare  as  our  place 
among  them  a  star,  a  whole  world,  a  happy 
heaven  of  its  own  for  every  soul  that  he 
has  chosen  to  call  to  him  ? 


16 


The  Egotism  of    \ 
the  Earth 


TX7HOEVER  would  approach  the  subject  of 
astronomy  may  well  heed  the  injunction  to 
Moses  :  "  Put  off  thy  shoes  from  off  thy  feet, 
for  the  place  whereon  thou  standest  is  holy 
ground."  It  is  not  for  the  casual  reader  or 
for  the  dreamy  student,  however  sincere,  that 
those  great  people,  the  astronomers  of  now 
and  of  yesterday  and  of  a  thousand  years  ago, 
have  spread  their  records  and  fixed  their  facts. 
But  from  the  proven  wonders  which  they  have 
taught  us  it  may  be  permitted  to  a  mere  lay- 
man to  seek  some  conclusions. 

That  any  individual  existing  on  this  earth  is 
egotistic,  is  most  human.  It  is  a  part  of  our 
nature.  Our  personal  individuality  is  so  bred 
in  the  bone,  so  part  of  our  flesh,  that  we  call 
one  phase  of  it  the  instinct  of  self  preserva- 
tion. No  passion  or  power  of  ours  is  stronger. 
Yet,  when  we  think  of  ourselves,  each  as  one 
of  the  millions  of  inhabitants  of  this  globe ; 
when  we  consider  what  a  puny  part  in  its  his- 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EAR:TH 

tory  our  little  life  plays,  and  how  quickly  our 
place  is  filled  when  we  vacate  it — what  a  vanity 
is  our  self  esteem!  Our  self  appreciation  is 
laughable  almost  to  pathos  ;  and  the  personal 
abnegation,  the  national  self  sacrifice  of  the 
Japanese,  seems  no  longer  a  marvelous  thing. 
Theirs  is,  if  not  the  better  part,  at  least  the 
truer  appreciation  of  the  individual. 

But  if  our  personal  importance  is  so  small  a 
consideration,  how  much  lower  in  insignificance 
do  we  sink  if  we  consider  the  mass  of  us  who 
inhabit  this  earth  and  our  petty  mundane  af- 
fairs, as  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  modern  tele- 
scope. Let  us  look  at  ourselves. 

The  little  wandering  globe  which  we  inhabit 
shrinks  into  insignificance  when  we  compare  it 
with  the  Sun,  which  controls  our  system,  and 
which  gives  to  us  our  heat,  life  and  very  exist- 
ence. The  Sun,  so  to  say,  is  our  Father  in 
Heaven,  our  immediate  God,  without  whose 
benignant  rays  this  earth  would  be  null  and 
void. 

To  our  same  Sun,  however,  other  planets 
like  our  own  make  obeisance  and  owe  fealty. 

Venus,  the  twin  of  the  earth,  Uranus,  Nep- 
tune, Saturn,  and  Jupiter,  those  monsters  of 

18 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

our  solar  system,  pursue  their  proper  courses 
round  the  Sun,  and  ought  to  teach  us  our  lit- 
tleness and  humbleness. 

But  we  poor  earth  worms  say  that  this  globe 
is  inhabited,  it  has  life  upon  it,  it  has  vegeta- 
tion, it  has  people ;  animal  and  human  life. 
The  moon  has  no  life,  except  as  the  young 
and  romancing  astronomers  tell,  nor  Mars,  in 
spite  of  fiction.  Nor  do  the  astronomers  ad- 
mit that  like  conditions  of  atmosphere  and 
gravitation  allow  of  similar  life  to  ours  on  the 
grander  planets  (Venus,  perhaps,  particularly 
excepted).  Our  laws  of  gravity,  our  limita- 
tions as  to  heat  and  cold,  a  thousand  reasons, 
all  preclude  that  the  other  planets,  or  their 
satellites,  should  be  inhabited. 

How  weak  is  this  argument !  On  our  own 
earth  how  different  are  the  forms  of  life,  and 
to  what  tests  of  torrid  and  frigid  zone  and 
varying  elements  are  they  adapted.  Does  the 
orchid  grow  in  the  arctic  circle?  Could  the 
polar  bear  live  at  the  tropics  ?  Does  a  fish  sur- 
vive out  of  its  element  ?  Does  a  man  drown 
in  the  sea  ? 

Life  here  on  earth  adapts  itself  to  heat  and 
cold,  to  atmosphere  and  to  almost  every  con- 

'9 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

dition.  Why  not  in  other  worlds  ?  It  is  no 
answer  to  say  that  such  life  must  be  different 
from  ours.  If  it  must  be,  it  may  be.  There 
are  a  multitude  of  arguments  to  show  that  many 
of  our  solar  planets  or  their  satellites  support 
life  and  all  its  possibilities  and  consequences. 

But  this  is  only  the  beginning  of  things,  if 
we  dare  to  consider,  to  open  our  eyes  arid  to 
look  through  a  telescope,  real  or  imaginary. 
A  glance  at  the  heavens  with  a  pair  of  opera 
glasses  will  reveal  much  more  than  the  naked 
eye  can  see.  How  much  more  have  the  as- 
tronomers found  with  their  modern  lenses  ? 

Our  little  tiny  solar  system  is  a  mere  doll, 
a  plaything,  in  the  minds  of  the  astronomers. 
It  is  but  the  primer  of  knowledge,  the  A,  B,  C, 
to  the  learning  of  the  wonders  of  the  universe. 

Keep  in  your  mind  for  the  moment  our  stu- 
pendous galaxy  of  worlds,  as  we  think  it,  with 
Jupiter,  Saturn,  and  Neptune,  subject  to  our 
great  Sun,  and  our  little  earth  trailing  in  the 
rear.  Then,  let  your  eyes  open  and  perceive 
the  infinite  extent  of  the  worlds,  which  lie 
beyond  our  orbit  and  our  ken. 

Professor  Newcomb  has  given  us  a  most 
clear  object  lesson  whereby  we  may  picture  the 


20 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

importance  and  the  distances  of  the  fixed  stars, 
those  "  other  worlds  than  ours." 

Take  a  small  farm  in  New  York  State,  half 
a  mile  square.  Put  an  apple  in  it,  and  then 
a  mustard  seed,  forty  feet  away.  Behold  the 
simulacra  of  the  Sun  and  the  earth  !  Dot  this 
plat  with  a  pea,  which  is  Jupiter,  and  a  pepper- 
corn, which  is  Saturn.  Add  a  few  assorted 
shot  which  will  answer  for  Neptune,  Venus, 
and  Mars.  This  is  the  solar  system  in  grand 
miniature.  Where  shall  we  locate  the  nearest 
fixed  star  on  this  imaginary  map  ? 

It  is  another  apple,  way  out  beyond  and  far 
beyond  San  Francisco.  And  that  is  the  near- 
est fixed  star.  Forty  feet  separate  the  earth 
from  the  Sun,  while  thousands  of  miles  mark 
the  nearest  limit  of  a  star,  in  this  comparison. 

Do  you  question  these  figures  and  facts  of 
the  astronomers  ?  They  are  easily  proved,  and 
one  illustration  is  as  good  as  another.  Centu- 
ries ago  six  planets  of  our  solar  system  were 
known  and  named.  The  days  of  the  week 
gave  them  honor  in  various  languages  and  in 
various  countries.  There  were  great  astrono- 
mers in  olden  days,  but  they  did  not  know 
Neptune  or  Uranus. 

21 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

The  story  of  Herschel's  discovery  of  Uranus 
in  1781  reads  like  a  fairy  tale,  as  does  all  of 
Herschers  history.  It  is  too  good  and  too 
true  to  be  spoiled  by  a  mere  allusion.  It  was 
by  chance,  nevertheless,  that  Herschel  found 
Uranus  and  picked  it  out  of  the  skies,  as  one 
might  snatch  a  gold  piece  from  the  sands  of  the 
sea  shore.  But  the  consequences  were  far 
greater  than  the  original  discovery.  The 
astronomers  of  that  time  no  sooner  knew  of 
this  new  planet  than  they  must  need  apply  to 
it  their  most  searching  lenses  and  make  their 
figures  and  computations  as  to  its  course  and 
orbit.  That  was  most  surely  done,  and  its 
movement  observed  and  noted.  It  did  not 
answer  to  the  laws  predicated  for  it,  and  which 
it  should  properly  observe. 

It  swerved  from  the  lines  which  the  mathe- 
maticians proved  to  themselves  it  ought  to  fol- 
low. Were  these  astronomers  wrong?  Was 
their  science  at  fault?  No.  Two  brilliant 
men,  Adams  of  Cambridge  and  Leverrier  of 
Paris,  at  about  the  same  time,  made  their  obser- 
vations and  drew  their  conclusions.  A  disturb- 
ing cause  must  account  for  the  divergence  of 
the  planet  from  its  proper  path,  and  this  could 


22 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

be  nothing  else  than  some  other  planet  as  yet 
unknown,  whose  influence  might  attract  Ura- 
nus from  its  normal  course. 

They  carried  out  their  theory  to  its  legiti- 
mate conclusion,  assumed  this  new  planet  of 
our  solar  system,  which  would  explain  Uranus's 
eccentricity,  and,  by  the  process  of  elimination, 
announced  that  in  a  certain  portion  of  the 
heavens,  at  such  and  such  a  time  our  new 
planet  would  be  found. 

It  was  so  found,  at  the  hour  fixed,  and  Nep- 
tune, one  of  the  mammoths  of  the  universe, 
was  proven  to  us.  It  was  discovered  by  pure 
mathematics,  and  is  the  triumph  of  astronom- 
ical calculation  and  exactness. 

When  we  consider  the  Sidereal  system,  there- 
fore, we  may  accept  the  astronomers*  views 
almost  as  if  we  saw  through  their  telescope  with 
our  own  eyes,  and  had  verified  their  figures  by 
an  expert  mathematician. 

Thus,  we  know  that  there  exist,  millions  and 
millions  of  miles  beyond  our  Sun,  innumerable 
other  suns.  Every  fixed  star  that  we  see  in  the 
shining  heavens  is  another  sun,  presumably 
much  greater,  hotter  and  more  important  than 
our  own. 

23 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

There  can  no  more  be  life  on  these  suns  than 
on  our  own.  But  we  can  imagine  no  cause  for 
their  being,  unless  they  also  give  heat,  light, 
and  all  their  consequences  to  their  myriads  of 
satellites  and  make  life  possible  for  innumerable 
other  worlds. 

Does  the  layman  question  the  existence  and 
infinity  of  these  suns? 

No  proof  is  easier  than  that  heretofore  sug- 
gested, which  a  good  opera  glass  affords.  On 
a  clear  night  the  naked  eye  may  find  in  the 
heavens  such  and  so  many  stars.  The  most 
perfect  count  in  the  most  favorable  locations 
will  disclose  about  five  thousand.  The  opera 
glass  will  bring  many  others  to  our  view,  and 
increase  our  knowledge.  A  small  telescope 
will  add  still  more  to  our  vision.  Even  in  the 
time  of  Sir  John  Herschel  no  less  than  five 
million  were  claimed  to  be  in  sight. 

The  greater  the  power  of  the  glass,  the 
greater  the  galaxy  shown  to  us;  and  the  more 
we  perfect  our  lenses  and  appliances  the  more 
and  more  millions  are  proven  to  our  sight. 
And  then  comes  modern  telescopic  photogra- 
phy, with  its  accumulation  of  perfect  proofs, 
and  lo!  a  myriad  more  of  stars  are  shown  to  us, 

24 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

and  heavenly  marvels  beyond  understanding 
and  almost  beyond  belief.  There  is  no  lack 
of  stars  to  see.  There  is  absolutely  no  limit 
to  them.  There  is  only  the  limitation  of  mod- 
ern mechanism  which  prevents  us  from  seeing 
all  the  stars.  It  is  only  the  finite  which  pre- 
vents us  from  seeing  the  infinite.  But  the 
finite  of  mechanical  science  can  only  creep  on 
to  some  advances.  It  is  almost  enough  to  ex- 
pect of  it  to-day  that  it  shows  us  the  moon  as 
if  two  hundred  and  forty  miles  away,  instead  of 
its  real  distance,  a  quarter  of  million  miles  from 
this  earth. 

There  is  one  more  answer  for  the  simple- 
minded,  who  hesitates  to  accept  the  distances 
of  the  fixed  stars  as  postulated  by  the  astrono- 
mers. The  problem  is  not  so  difficult,  it  is 
only  a  question  of  accuracy.  Knowing  the 
base  line  and  the  angle,  it  is  child's  play  to 
calculate  the  height  of  a  mountain;  and  with 
the  stars,  the  problem  is  no  less  simple,  except 
that  by  reason  of  their  tremendous  distances  we 
lack  the  sufficient  basis.  The  extreme  orbit  of 
the  earth  is  our  ultimate  base,  and  that  is  ad- 
mittedly a  limitation  in  calculating  infinite 
remoteness.  But  the  approximate  figures  of 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

the  fixed  stars  as  they  are  related  to  us,  may  be 
safely  accepted  by  any  but  the  more  persistent 
astronomers.  They  will  certainly  suffice  for  the 
purposes  of  this  article. 

There  is  one  more  fact  concerning  the  stars 
which  must  be  considered  in  this  long  preamble. 
This  concerns  the  velocity  of  light.  Light 
takes  a  measurable  time  to  travel,  swift  as  it 
moves.  In  a  summer  thunder  shower  we  see 
the  lightning  and  later  hear  the  crash  of  the 
thunder.  The  difference  between  sight  and 
sound  tells  us  how  far  away  the  lightning  may 
be.  Five  seconds  of  time  means  a  mile  from 
the  flash.  In  brief,  light  travels  a  million  times 
as  fast  as  sound.  It  will  flash  seven  times 
around  the  earth  in  a  second;  and  yet  that 
which  comes  to  us  from  the  heavens  takes  an 
appreciable  period.  For  example,  eight  min- 
utes is  needed  for  the  sun's  light  to  reach  the 
earth.  Jupiter's  comes  to  us  in  half  an  hour. 
The  nearest  star  is  so  much  more  remote,  that 
its  rays  attain  to  us  only  as  they  blazed  out 
years  ago.  The  light  of  farther  stars  we  see  as 
of  still  longer  past,  a  hundred,  a  thousand  and 
even  a  million  of  years.  It  may  humble  us  to 
realize,  as  a  corollary  to  this,  that  the  light  of 

26 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

our  globe  is  far,  far  too  small  to  reach  to  any 
star.  We  are  quite  as  unknown  to  them  as  is 
the  light  of  their  satellites  to  us. 

And  there  is  this  astounding  thought  that 
many  of  the  bright  or  fainter  stars  which  we 
view  in  the  sky  to-night  may  long  since  have 
burned  out  and  become  extinct,  while  their 
beams  are  still  traveling  toward  us. 

All  of  which  leads  to  this  consideration.  If 
we  imagine  a  person,  a  power,  a  being,  a  God, 
omnipresent  as  He  must  be — from  the  view 
point  of  the  various  stars — He  must  see  and 
know  the  history  of  this  earth  from  its  begin- 
ning until  to-day.  Every  item  of  our  past, 
however  minute,  is  still  in  continuous  view  and 
in  perpetual  remembrance. 

This  is  a  mere  suggestion  of  what  astronomy 
tells  us;  it  leads  our  imagination  into  possibili- 
ties as  deep  as  the  vault  of  heaven  itself.  Lest 
we  drown  ourselves  in  that,  let  us  hasten  to 
some  conclusion  from  our  premises.  Let  us 
grasp  even  at  a  straw  before  we  sink. 

If  the  primer  of  astronomy  proves  anything 
it  tells  us  that  our  earth  is  a  mere  atom  in  the 
universe.  It  gives  us  fair  reason  to  believe 
that  there  are  countless  worlds,  other  than  ours, 

27 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

capable  of  supporting  life,  and  inhabited  or  in- 
habitable. However  widely  the  old  school  and 
new  school  of  astronomers  may  differ  on  this 
point,  there  is  no  consensus  of  opinion  and  one 
is  free  to  philosophise  on  the  subject  as  one 
will.  Astronomy  certainly  shows  us  how  a 
myriad  of  systems,  like  to  our  little  world  and 
its  surroundings,  exist  and  have  their  being, 
their  place  and  their  regular  course  in  a  glori- 
ous celestial  plan.  Can  anyone  doubt  that  an 
omnipotent,  omniscient,  and  eternal  force  rules 
and  regulates  this  host  of  worlds?  Can  any- 
one doubt  that  there  is  a  God?  Whatever  this 
God  may  be,  whatever  his  personality,  what- 
ever attributes  our  limitation  of  thought  may 
ascribe  to  him,  he  must  exist  and  reign  as  the 
necessary  ruler  of  the  wondrous  universe  which 
he  has  created. 

So  far,  astronomy  seems  to  settle  and  con- 
firm our  religious  creeds,  in  that  we  know  there 
is  a  God.  How  does  it  affect  our  belief  in  the 
divinity  of  Christ  ?  Can  we  still  hold  to  our 
faith  in  the  redemption  and  the  great  sacrifice  ? 
Or  is  that  all  a  mere  fiction  of  our  egregious 
egotism  ? 

Can  it  be  that  the  only  Son  of  God  was  cru- 

28 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

cified  here  on  this  least  of  worlds  to  save  a 
handful  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  universe  ? 
Was  this  mere  speck  in  creation  chosen  for 
this  profound  event  ?  Dare  we  assume  in  our 
arrogant  pride  that  we  miserable  sinners  and 
infinitesimal  atoms  were  alone  singled  out  to 
be  saved  ?  Are  there  myriads  of  worlds  which 
have  no  Saviour,  while  the  worms  on  this  dot 
of  dust  are  redeemed  by  "  Him  Crucified"  ? 

An  answer  to  these  questions  may  come 
from  this  consideration.  This  earth  alone  of 
all  God's  universe  is  in  itself  corrupt,  errant, 
wicked,  and  demands  redemption.  All  the 
rest  of  the  great  creation  swings  on  its  course 
with  the  "  harmony  of  the  spheres."  Here 
only  is  the  discord. 

A  great  French  poet  has  recently  given  us 
his  conception  of  the  universe,  in  his  "  Le- 
gend of  the  Earth."  It  begins  : 

When  God  the  Father  fashioned  with  his  breath 
The  vasty  void,  which  is  his  dwelling  place, 
He  took  upon  his  shoulders  broad  and  strong 
A  wallet  rilled  with  all  the  stars  of  space. 

And  then  follows  the  description  of  his 
"  sowing  ": 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

Till  heaps  on  heaps  of  orbs  and  planets  filled 
The  utmost  confines  of  eternity. 
"  Go,"  said  the  Lord,  who  sowed  the  deep  with  worlds, 
"  Go,  stars,  and  shine  throughout  the  spreading  skies, 
People  the  azure  fields  with  your  fair  beams, 
And  sing  to  all  your  rhythmic  harmonies." 
****** 

And  as  each  orb  rolled  onward  and  appeared 
A  joybell  ringing  forth  its  holy  glee, 
The  Almighty  gazed  upon  his  work  and  heard 
With  favor  all  creation's  jubilee. 
So  when  the  Lord  had  flung  out  all  the  stars 
And  with  soft  beams  the  heavens  were  over-run, 
He  looked  inside  the  wallet,  where  he  found 
Between  two  seams  a  broken  piece  of  Sun. 
He  took  the  fragments  in  his  wondrous  palm, 
And  without  question  of  its  rightful  place, 
Breathed  on  it  with  the  whirlwind  of  his  mouth 
And  sent  it  reeling  through  the  realms  of  space. 

Then  the  poet  tells  how  the  great  Creator 
heard  "  the  vast  hosannas  of  the  spheres,"  and 
how,  suddenly,  amid  the  "glorious  hymn," 
"  a  murmur  came  " — 

It  rose  from  out  that  bit  of  broken  sphere, — 
Yea,  those  vile  creatures  whom  it  bore  away 
Wept  for  the  Mother  Star  they  scarce  could  see 
In  their  dull  clime  and  in  their  sky  so  gray. 

3° 


THE  EGOTISM  OF  THE  EARTH 

Then  came  to  their  complaints  this  gracious 
message : 

"  Stray  particle  of  Sun  whose  name  is  Earth, 
And  ye  that  crawl,"  said  God,  "  worms  that  ye  are, 
Sing,  for  I  give  you  Death,  yea,  a  new  birth, 
That  ye  may  all  regain  yon  brilliant  Star." 

Who  shall  say  that  this  poet  was  not  right  ? 
His  conception  seems  a  perfect  one.  All  the 
knowledge  of  the  astronomers  tends  to  prove 
that  the  universe  is  true  and  perfect  to  infinity. 
We  are  the  only  flaw.  This  little  earth  is 
alone  at  fault.  We  poor,  miserable,  egotistical 
beings — we  only  of  all  God's  creatures — need 
a  Christ,  a  Saviour. 


Some  Religious  Helps 
to  a  Literary  Style 


A  NY  one  in  chase  of  a  writer's  rainbow,  who 
seeks  to  find  the  pot  of  gold  at  its  end,  and 
would  fain  secure  for  himself  that  uncertain  and 
indefinite  prize  known  as  a  literary  style,  may 
perhaps  discover  herein  some  guide-posts  to 
point  him  toward  his  way.  If  there  is  no  royal 
road  to  learning,  neither  is  there  any  short-cut; 
but  it  may  be  that  the  garb  of  thought  and 
form  and  fashion  of  expression  which  character- 
ize certain  religious  books  may  prove  the  long- 
est way  round  and  yet  the  shortest  way  home 
to  the  acquiring  for  our  present  uses  of  a  purer, 
simpler,  and  more  dignified  language. 

A  child  cannot  run  until  it  has  learned  to 
walk;  no  more  can  a  man  write  until  he  has 
read.  What  then  is  the  "reading,  which  maketh 
a  full  man,"  so  that  out  of  his  very  fullness  of 
reading  he  shall  express  his  ideas  in  a  clear  and 
limpid  stream  of  thought?  Surely  this  is  not 
to  be  had  from  the  current  literature  of  the  day. 
This  question  has  been  asked  concerning  the 

33 


SOME  RELIGIOUS  HELPS 

present  flood  of  books:  "Is  it  not  better  that  a 
hundred  unnecessary  volumes  should  be  pub- 
lished, rather  than  that  one  that  is  good  and 
useful  should  be  lost?"  Scriptural  authority,  if 
nothing  else,  would  compel  us  to  answer  this  in 
the  affirmative,  unless  we  stop  to  consider  that 
the  ninety-and-nine  of  the  worthless  books  not 
only  choke  the  single  worthy  one,  but  also 
tend  to  crowd  out  of  life  and  usefulness  the 
best  books  of  the  past. 

The  visible  result  of  our  over-production  of 
books  is  that,  because  we  are  hopelessly  unable 
to  read  everything,  we  read  nothing.  And  we 
read  nothing,  absolutely,  literally,  so  far  as 
mental  discipline  is  concerned,  because  the  best 
of  our  average  reading  is  in  the  better  class  of 
the  magazines,  and  the  worst  of  it — alas!  for 
our  habits — is  in  the  newspapers.  And  this 
custom  of  our  reading  is  not  because  of  any 
lack  of  books  among  us,  nor  good  books,  more- 
over; for,  as  has  been  truly  said,  "Books  are 
rarely  destroyed.  They  go  to  the  attic  or  the 
second-hand  dealer,  but  for  the  most  part  they 
are  preserved  and  accumulate  rapidly."  It  has 
been  estimated  by  good  authority,  that  there 
are  now  in  the  United  States  700,000,000  vol- 

34 


TO  A  LITERARY  STYLE 


umes,  or  about  nine  books  fer  capita.  In 
Europe  the  accumulation  has  been  going  on 
for  centuries,  and  the  total  number  of  books  for 
the  whole  world  is  figured  at  3,200,000,000, 
or  two  books  each  for  every  inhabitant,  old  or 
young,  wise  or  illiterate,  heathen  or  Hottentot. 
And  most  of  these  are  old  books,  and  of  them 
it  is  a  faithful  saying  that  "like  proverbs,  they 
receive  their  chief  value  from  the  stamp  and 
esteem  of  ages,  through  which  they  have  passed." 

No  "  Doctor  of  Literature"  could  make  a 
better  prescription  for  the  modern  reader, 
suffering  from  periodical  and  current  newspaper 
indigestion  and  dyspepsia,  than  to  advise  a 
course  of  tonical  old  books.  This  might  begin 
with  Montaigne  and  his  quaint  and  pungent 
philosophy.  It  should  include  many  of  the 
good  old  formulas 'Contained  in  that  storehouse 
of  learning,  "Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melan- 
choly." Passages  from  Young's  "Night 
Thoughts"  might  be  soothing,  and  bits  of 
Rochefoucauld  leave  a  gentle,  pleasant  bitter 
taste  upon  the  tongue. 

But  of  course  the  pharmacopoeia  is  inexhausti- 
ble: let  us  consider  a  little  more  at  length  what 
benefits  may  come  from  the  religious  writers. 

35 


SOME  RELIGIOUS  HELPS 

The  "Imitation  of  Christ"  by  Thomas  a 
Kempis  is  the  most  popular  religious  work  in 
Christendom;  and  fifty  years  ago  it  was  a  fact 
that,  of  all  popular  books,  popular  in  the  best 
sense,  and  widely  spread  in  the  fullest,  it  stood 
first.  Dr.  Johnson  said  of  it  that  it  had  gone 
through  more  editions  than  there  had  been 
months  since  its  publication,  and  the  first  edition 
was  printed  in  1472.  "The  priceless  sentences 
of  Thomas  a  Kempis,"  as  Charles  Kingsley 
called  them,  have  been  read  in  a  Babel  of  sixty 
different  languages,  so  often  have  they  been 
translated.  That  its  authorship  is  still  in  doubt, 
and  as  to  whether  Gers^n,  Gers0n,  or  a  Kempis 
wrote  it  matters  no  more  than  the  spelling 
of  Shakespeare's  name.  "Thousands  upon 
thousands  have  forgotten  their  sorrows  and 
dried  their  tears  over  its  earnest  pages,"  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  have  found  in  it  rest  for 
the  soul  and  "the  peace  of  God  which  passeth 
all  understanding."  George  Eliot  said  of  its 
contents  that  "they  are  inspired  utterances, 
speaking  to  every  soul  and  to  every  age." 

But  regardless  altogether  of  the  religious 
comfort  which  this  book  has  given,  and  of  its 
wonderful  influence  and  power  for  good  among 

36 


TO  A  LITERARY  STYLE 


Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics  alike,  it  is 
surely  not  read  to-day  as  it  was  fifty  years  ago, 
and  our  literature  is  by  so  much  the  worse.  In 
the  current  English  translation  of  it  the  diction 
is  musical,  sonorous,  terse,  dignified,  and  ex- 
pressive in  every  way,  and  no  writing  outside 
of  the  Bible  is  more  beautifully  pleading, 
plausible,  and  persuasive  to  sanctity. 

There  is  another  religious  work  much  more 
important  than  the  "  Imitation  of  Christ," 
which  is,  if  not  religiously  neglected,  at  least 
regrettably  ignored  by  the  literary  student. 
This  is  "The  Book  of  Common  Prayer  of 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United 
States  of  America."  Of  course  this  is  essen- 
tially the  same  as  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer 
of  the  Church  of  England,  but  to  those  who 
are  familiar  with  the  American  form  many  of 
its  beauties  are  enhanced  by  virtue  of  our  very 
familiarity  with  them  and  by  the  softening  of 
some  early  crudities  in  the  English  version. 
In  Bartlett's  "Familiar  Quotations"  some 
twenty-five  or  more  passages  from  the  Prayer 
Book  are  thought  well-known  enough  to  be 
included,  as  against  three  from  Thomas  a  Kem- 
pis.  The  more  honor  to  the  Prayer  Book! 

37 


SOME  RELIGIOUS  HELPS 

Of  course  the  Episcopal  forms  for  the  Mar- 
riage Service  and  for  the  Burial  of  the  Dead 
stand  as  accepted  models  of  what  may  be  best 
said  on  those  occasions,  and  many  phrases  from 
them,  as,  "Earth  to  earth,  ashes  to  ashes,"  etc., 
or  "To  have  and  to  hold,  from  this  day  forward, 
for  better  for  worse,"  etc.,  by  their  very  strength 
of  wording  have  become  the  common  property 
of  the  English  language. 

The  catechism,  too,  has  many  sentences 
most  beautifully  rounded,  such  as  "the  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual 
grace." 

But  more  particularly  the  Prayer  Book  is 
valuable  to  us  because  in  its  Psalter  we  find 
ready  to  our  reading  the  most  beautiful  version 
of  the  Psalms.  It  is  a  conceded  fact  that  the 
Psalms  as  they  appear  in  King  James*  Bible  are 
the  more  accurately  translated  and  true  to  the 
original.  But,  as  given  in  the  Psalter,  they  are 
certainly  more  musical  and  rhythmical.  They 
fairly  read  themselves,  so  easy  is  their  flow,  and 
so  well  balanced  their  refrain.  There  is  good 
reason  for  this  in  that  the  Prayer  Book's  ver- 
sion was  taken  from  Cranmer's  Bible,  which 
preceded  the  King  James  Bible;  and  the  Psal- 

38 


TO  A  LITERARY  STYLE 


ter  was  musical  because  it  was  so  intended, — 
intended  to  be  sung  and  to  take  the  place  of 
the  Latin  chants.  If  any  one  be  curious  to 
compare  the  two  renditions  of  the  Psalms,  let 
him  read,  probably  the  most  familiar,  the 
twenty-third,  "The  Lord  is  my  shepherd,"  in 
the  Prayer  Book  and  the  Bible,  and  say  which 
pleases  his  sense  of  metre  and  rhythm  the  bet- 
ter. Other  psalms,  not  quite  so  well  remem- 
bered, will  show  the  metrical  difference  even 
more  markedly. 

The  collects  of  the  Prayer  Book  are  perhaps 
its  most  important  literary  feature.  They  are 
the  perfect  poetry  of  prayer.  They  may  be 
called,  almost,  a  humble  supplication  to  the 
Deity  in  sonnet  form.  Though  not  limited  in 
their  number  of  lines,  their  mould  is  as  fixed 
as  that  of  a  sonnet.  They  begin  with  an  ad- 
dress to  the  Trinity  or  one  of  the  Trinity,  the 
supplication  follows,  and  the  conclusion,  how- 
ever addressed,  is  the  invariable  plea  of  Christ's 
intercession;  and  all  this,  however  worded,  is 
in  one  sentence. 

Most  of  the  collects  are  translations  from  the 
old  Latin  missals,  but  instead  of  losing  in 
transition,  the  Anglicised  forms  have  gained  in 

39 


SOME  RELIGIOUS  HELPS 

grace  and  power  of  expression,  and  have  all  the 
sweetness  of  a  benediction. 

Like  a  string  of  beads  blessed  by  the  Pope, 
or  indeed  like  a  necklace  of  glorious  pearls, 
have  been  strung  around  the  Sundays,  Saints' 
Days,  and  Holy  Days  of  the  Church  a  series 
of  appropriate  collects  which  are  of  inestimable 
literary  value.  If  it  may  be  permitted  to  quote 
but  one  of  them  as  an  example,  it  shall  be  that 
for  the  First  Sunday  in  Advent,  which  was 
composed  in  1549: 

Almighty  God,  give  us  grace  that  we  may  cast 
away  the  works  of  darkness,  and  put  upon  us  the 
armour  of  light,  now  in  the  time  of  this  mortal  life, 
in  which  thy  son  Jesus  Christ  came  to  visit  us  in 
great  humility;  that  in  the  last  day,  when  he  shall 
come  again  in  his  glorious  Majesty  to  judge  both  the 
quick  and  the  dead,  we  may  rise  to  the  life  immortal, 
through  him  who  liveth  and  reigneth  with  thee  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  now  and  ever,  Amen. 

The  collect  for  Ash  Wednesday,  with  its 
familiar  sentences  of  "  new  and  contrite  hearts," 
and  "worthily  lamenting  our  sins,"  is  beauti- 
fully composed.  It  is  of  the  time  of  the 
Reformation. 

One  more  collect  must  be  quoted   in   full, 

40 


TO  A  LITERARY  STYLE 


not  only  for  its  intrinsic  merit  and  euphony, 
but  because  it  serves  well  to  introduce  a  most 
important  subject.  It  is  the  collect  for  the 
Second  Sunday  in  Advent,  and  was  also  writ- 
ten in  1549: 

Blessed  Lord,  who  hath  caused  all  holy  Scriptures 
to  be  written  for  our  learning:  Grant  that  we  may  in 
such  wise  hear  them,  read,  mark,  learn  and  inwardly 
digest  them,  that  by  patience,  and  comfort  of  thy  holy 
Word,  we  may  embrace,  and  ever  hold  fast  the 
blessed  hope  of  everlasting  life,  which  thou  hast  given 
us  in  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  to  the  Bible,  then,  to  the  Book  of 
Books,  that,  we  argue,  we  shall  do  well  to  come 
back;  and  we  shall  gain  from  the  reading  of  it, 
if  nothing  else,  a  rich  vocabulary,  a  terseness 
and  strength  of  idiom,  a  graceful  and  poetic 
imagery  and  expression,  and,  withal,  a  simple 
and  homely  style  of  writing  which  will  best  tell 
any  story  or  plead  any  cause.  By  its  aid  we 
may  rise  to  the  highest  flights  of  eloquence  or 
point  to  the  sharpest  our  bluntest  words.  ^^ 

Within  a  short  time,  there  have  appeared  in 
the  secular  press  many  articles,  and  editorials, 
lamenting  the  neglect  of  Bible  reading  which 
has  characterized  the  last  three  or  four  decades, 


SOME  RELIGIOUS  HELPS 

and  the  unvarying  opinion  has  been  expressed 
that  the  English  language  of  to-day  is  by  so 
much  the  weaker  and  poorer.  These  articles 
all  bespeak  for  the  Bible  renewed  interest  and 
re-reading,  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  may  help  to 
awaken  an  interest  in  the  subject. 

This  explanation  may  be  offered  in  excuse 
for  our  lethargy.  It  would  seem  that  many 
people  now  do  not  read  the  Bible  naturally  and 
familiarly  as  they  used  to  do,  for  a  hundred 
reasons  of  course,  but  for  one  in  particular. 
They  are  afraid  of  it.  If  they  believe  in  it, 
with  the  simple  religious  faith  of  old  times, 
they  are  afraid  of  meeting  in  it  strange  pas- 
sages which  our  modern  religion  has  not  yet 
taught  them  fully  to  understand,  and  concern- 
ing which  they  do  not  wish  to  be  questioned 
lest  they  should  not  be  able  to  give  a  reason 
for  the  faith  that  is  in  them.  And  those  who 
think  they  do  not  believe  in  the  Bible  fear  it 
and  shun  it  lest  they  should  be  perverted  or 
converted  from  their  imaginary  beliefs,  or  the 
lack  of  them.  Yet  surely  a  book  so  widely 
circulated  and  so  universally  owned  deserves 
at  least  an  occasional  use.  If  it  were  only  read 
in  idle  moments,  as  one  picks  up  an  old  news- 

42 


TO  A  LITERARY  STYLE 


paper  or  magazine,  the  literary  gain  would  be 
incalculable  and  the  world  roll  round  the  bet- 
ter. "  Don't  be  afraid  of  reading  the  Bible  " 
is  a  text  on  which  ten  thousand  editorials  and 
sermons  might  be  written. 

One  reason  of  the  failure  to  appreciate  the 
Bible  as  simply  a  book  has  been  well  put  by 
Dr.  Moulton.  He  says  : 

The  Bible  has  come  down  to  us  as  the  worst- 
printed  book  in  the  world.  Not  only  modern  litera- 
ture, but  even  such  as  the  literature  of  ancient  Greece, 
if  given  out  in  modern  times,  will  be  printed  in  a 
manner  which  conveys  the  literary  structure  directly 
to  the  eye.  If  the  work  be  a  drama,  the  speeches 
are  separated  and  the  names  of  speakers  inserted ;  if 
it  be  a  poem,  verse  and  line  divisions  will  be  made 
obvious ;  in  essays  or  histories  there  will  be  at  least 
titles  and  proper  divisions  into  sections.  But,  though 
the  Bible  is  proclaimed  to  be  one  of  the  world's  great 
literatures,  if  we  open  our  ordinary  versions  we  find 
that  the  literary  form  is  that  of  a  scrap-book ;  a  suc- 
cession of  numbered  sentences,  with  divisions  into 
longer  or  shorter  chapters,  under  which  all  trace  of 
dramatic,  lyric,  story,  essay,  is  hopelessly  lost. 

It  may  be  small  wonder,  then,  that  the  cas- 
ual reader  misses  much  in  his  perusal  of  the 
Bible,  or  that  he  loses  himself  in  its  involved 

43 


SOME  RELIGIOUS  HELPS 

passages.  But  even  in  its  current  form,  defec- 
tive as  it  may  be,  it  is  perfectly  safe  for  the 
most  sceptical  and  ignorant  of  us  to  wander 
through  its  pages,  and  without  regard  to  chap- 
ter, verse,  or  book,  enjoy  its  everlasting  beau- 
ties as  we  go. 

Did  not  Macaulay  record  of  Burke  that  be- 
fore he  delivered  any  of  his  masterly  speeches 
he  always  read  a  chapter  from  Isaiah  ?  If  you 
will  read  Isaiah  again,  you  will  know  why;  and 
if  you  will  read  and  re-read  the  sixty-six  chap- 
ters through  and  through  and  learn  to  know 
them,  you  will  have  a  command  of  language 
and  the  "  open  sesame  "  to  a  treasure-house  of 
phrase  and  expression  which  you  may  plunder 
at  your  pleasure. 

Macaulay  certainly  knew  Isaiah,  as  his  glo- 
rious poem  of  "  Naseby  "  shows  : 

Oh  !   wherefore  come  ye  forth  in  triumph  from  the 

North, 
With  your  hands,  and  your  feet,  and  your  raiment  all 

red? 
And  wherefore  doth  your  rout  send  forth  a  joyous 

shout  ? 
And  whence  be  the  grapes  of  the  wine-press  that  ye 

tread  ? 


TO  A  LITERARY  STYLE 


Oh  !  evil  was  the  root,  and  bitter  was  the  fruit, 
And  crimson  was  the  juice  of  the  vintage  that  we 

trod: 
For  we  trampled  on  the  throng  of  the  haughty  and 

the  strong, 
Who  sate  in  the  high  places  and  slew  the  saints  of 

God. 

Compare  this  with  the  poem  contained  in 
the  first  six  verses  of  the  sixty-third  chapter  of 
Isaiah: 

1.  Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom,  with  dyed 
garments  from  Bozrah  ?     This  that  is  glorious  in  his 
apparel,  travelling  in  the  greatness  of  his  strength  ? — 
I  that  speak  in  righteousness,  mighty  to  save. 

2.  Wherefore  art  thou  red  in  thine  apparel,  and 
thy  garments  like  him  that  treadeth  in  the  winefat  ? 

3.  I  have  trodden  the  wine  press  alone ;    and  of 
the   people    there    was   none    with    me :    for  I  will 
tread  them  in  mine  anger,  and  trample  them  in  my 
fury ;    and  their  blood  shall  be  sprinkled  upon    my 
garments,  and  I  will  stain  all  my  raiment. 

4.  For  the  day  of  vengeance  is  in  mine  heart,  and 
the  year  of  my  redeemed  is  come. 

5.  And  I  looked,  and  there  was  none  to  help ;  and 
I  wondered  that  there  was  none  to  uphold  :  therefore 
mine  own  arm  brought  salvation  unto  me ;  and  my 
fury,  it  upheld  me. 

45 


SOME  RELIGIOUS  HELPS 

6.  And  I  will  tread  down  the  people  in  mine  an- 
ger, and  make  them  drunk  in  my  fury,  and  I  will 
bring  down  their  strength  to  the  earth. 

Certainly  "  Naseby  "  owes  something  of  its 
spirit,  its  ring,  and  its  very  language  to  the  old 
Hebrew  poet. 

rhat  Hebrew  poetry  is  may  not  be  known 
to  everybody.  Our  poetry  is  metrical  only,  as 
in  blank  verse,  or  metrical  and  rhythmical  also, 
as  in  the  usual  poem,  with  the  ends  of  the  lines 
rhyming  together  in  certain  sequence.  Poetry 
to  the  Hebrew  mind,  on  the  other  hand,  meant 
a  rhyming  of  ideas  and  not  of  words,  of 
thought  and  not  of  sounds.  A  thought  is 
first  expressed  in  one  form,  and  then  the  same, 
or  a  similar  thought,  is  repeated  in  another 
form.  As,  for  example :  "  The  heavens  de- 
clare the  glory  of  God  ;  and  the  firmament 
showeth  his  handiwork." 

But  the  Bible  is  also  full  of  poetry  as  we 
consider  it,  rhyme,  of  course,  being  excepted. 
The  last  five  verses  of  the  twenty-fourth  chap- 
ter of  Proverbs,  for  instance,  is,  considered  by 
itself,  a  beautiful  sonnet  on  "  Slothfulness," 
and,  if  not  in  the  exact  form  of  a  sonnet,  has 
at  least  all  the  spirit  of  one. 

46 


TO  A  LITERARY  STYLE 


The  very  first  Psalm,  as  given  in  the  Bible, 
has  six  verses,  but  as  it  reads  in  the  Psalter  it 
has  seven.  There  are  two  lines  to  each  verse 
in  the  Psalter  version,  and  we  thus  have  a  per- 
fect fourteen-line  sonnet.  Moreover,  there  is 
a  full  pause  and  break  in  the  thought  after  the 
eighth  line.  The  next  four  lines  are  distinct  and 
separate,  and  the  last  two  lines  form  a  perfect  and 
strong  conclusion  of  the  subject ;  all  this  in  strict 
accordance  with  our  rules  for  a  sonnet  to-day. 

Lyrics  and  epics,  of  course,  abound  in  the 
Bible,  and  Moulton  calls  "  Solomon's  Song " 
"  the  great  honeymoon  poem  of  universal  lit- 
erature." 

In  the  Psalms  may  be  found  several  chance 
examples  of  hexameters,  as  for  instance  : 

God  came  |  up  with  a  |  shout :  our  Lord  with 
the  |  sound  of  a  trumpet. 

There  is  a  |  river  the  |  flowing  where  |  of  shall  | 
gladden  the  city. 

Halle  |  lujah  the  |  city  of  |  God !  Jehovah 
hath  |  blest  her ! 

These  also  appear  in  the  New  Testament : 

Art    thou    he  |  that  should  |  come   or  |  do    we  | 
look  for  another  ? 

Husbands  |  love  your  |  wives  and  |  be  not  — 
bitter  a  |  gainst  them. 

47 


SOME  RELIGIOUS  HELPS 

The  Apocrypha  is  by  no  means  to  be  neg- 
lected by  the  reader.  Ecclesiasticus  alone 
would  call  for  a  longer  thesis  than  this  to 
consider  some  of  its  literary  treasures,  for  it 
is  a  series  of  beautiful  essays  which  few  know. 
The  panegyric  on  Doctors,  of  itself  (chapter 
38),  if  the  profession  knew  it,  would  be  well 
worth  engraving  on  tablets  of  gold. 

Perhaps  one  thing  more  than  another  which 
the  reading  of  the  Bible  would  help  to  teach  us 
is  the  power  of  the  short  word.  The  English 
language  is  a  language  of  small  words,  and  the 
Saxon  of  it  gives  it  its  strength  and  its  brevity 
of  speech.  The  early  writers,  the  "  pure  wells 
of  English  undefiled,"  are  full  of  small  words. 
The  Bible  naturally  uses  the  same  vigorous 
style.  An  example  may  be  cited  from  what  is 
considered  one  of  the  most  magnificent  pas- 
sages in  Holy  Writ,  that,  namely,  which  de- 
scribes the  death  of  Sisera : 

At  her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell :  at  her  feet  he  bowed, 
he  fell,  he  lay  down  ;  where  he  bowed,  there  he  fell 
down  dead,  etc. 

Again,  there  is  the  passage  in  Ezekiel,  which 
Coleridge  is  said  to  have  considered  the  most 
sublime  in  all  the  Scriptures,  beginning : 

48 


TO  A  LITERARY  STYLE 


And  he  said  unto  me,  Son  of  man,  can  these  bones 
live  ?  and  I  answered,  O  Lord  God,  thou  knowest, 
etc. 

We  may  note  also  the  grand  passage  which 
begins  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  "  In  the  begin- 
ning was  the  Word,"  etc.,  and  including  the 
terse  sentence,  "  There  was  a  man  sent  from 
God  whose  name  was  John."  In  the  first 
fourteen  verses  of  this  chapter  there  are  twenty- 
eight  polysyllables  and  two  hundred  and  one 
monosyllables. 

Briefly,  therefore,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
short  word  is  characteristic  of  the  Bible,  and 
proof  of  its  strong,  terse,  good  English. 

In  conclusion,  this  advice  may  be  offered: 
Read  a  verse  or  a  chapter,  as  you  will,  from  the 
Bible,  every  night  before  you  go  to  bed,  as  was 
the  pious  practice,  well  observed,  of  your  fore- 
fathers. Choose  Isaiah,  choose  the  Psalms,  or 
Proverbs,  or  Ecclesiastes  ;  or  choose  by  the  old- 
fashioned  simple  hazard  of  thumb,  if  you  please. 
But,  read  a  little  in  the  Bible  !  It  cannot  hurt 
you.  You  may  sleep  the  sweeter  for  it,  and 
gain  a  purer  diction  ;  and,  Heaven  help  you  ! 
if  you  do  not  gain  thereby  a  blessing  and  a 
benediction,  too ! 

49 


Suicide  and 
the  Bible 


T^ROM  the  time  of  the  first  great  crime,  when 
Cain  slew  his  brother,  all  nations,  tribes  and 
peoples  have  held  that  the  circumstances  at- 
tending the  taking  of  human  life,  and  the  rea- 
sons, motives,  or  provocation  therefor  greatly 
vary,  and  accordingly,  in  their  laws,  they  have 
recognized  degrees  of  homicide.  They  have 
differed,  of  course,  as  to  what  circumstances 
render  the  killing  of  another  a  crime  to  be 
punished  or  avenged,  a  misfortune  to  be  con- 
doned, or  an  act  to  be  applauded  and  honored; 
but  that  the  facts  of  each  case  should  govern 
the  judgment,  and  that  the  taking  of  another's 
life  may  or  may  not  be  criminal,  has  been  the 
belief  of  all  governments,  civilized  or  savage, 
Christian  or  heathen,  ancient  or  modern. 

When  the  slayer  and  the  slain  are  one  and 
the  same  person,  however,  when  it  is  suicide 
and  not  homicide  that  is  in  point,  nations  in 
general  and  moralists  and  philosophers  in  par- 
ticular have  differed  widely  in  their  views.  A 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

few  modern  Christian  nations,  among  which 
are  England  and  America,  alone  say  that  self- 
destruction  is  self-murder,  and  refuse  to  admit 
that  there  may  be  justifiable  suicide  as  well  as 
justifiable  homicide. 

The  laws  of  England  formerly  punished  the 
suicide  by  forfeiture  of  his  property  to  the 
King  and  by  his  ignominious  burial  in  the 
highway,  with  a  stake  driven  through  his  body. 
Each  wayfarer  and  passer-by  thus  trampled  on 
his  grave  and  so  manifested  his  contempt  for 
the  impious  act.  And  even  to-day  the  estab- 
lished Church  of  England  forbids  that  its 
beautiful  burial  service  should  be  used  over  a 
suicide,  and  leaves  him  to  be  shoveled  into  his 
dishonored  grave  unwept,  unhonored,  and  un- 
sung. Nor  is  the  Church  of  Rome  less  severe. 

The  Criminal  Code  of  the  State  of  New 
York  has  declared  it  "a  grave  public  wrong" 
and  has  provided  severe  punishments  for  any 
unfortunate  who  unsuccessfully  attempts  it. 
And  the  laws  of  most  of  the  states  are  similar 
in  character.  How  different  is  this  position 
from  that  which  other  peoples  and  other  times 
have  held,  will  appear  from  a  glance  at  history 
in  this  regard. 

52 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

Among  the  Greeks  suicide  was  not  officially 
condemned,  but  on  the  contrary  rather  fav- 
ored by  some  schools  of  philosophy.  Cato, 
the  younger,  was  a  suicide.  Zeno,  the  founder 
of  the  Stoics,  after  fifty-eight  years  of  teaching, 
took  his  own  life,  and  his  disciples  commended 
the  act  and  upheld  the  practice  in  their  doc- 
trines. The  Roman  law  did  not  forbid  it,  nor 
was  it  discountenanced  by  public  opinion. 

Among  the  Hindoos  legalized  suicide  was 
formerly  common,  and  is  not  unusual  to-day. 
The  custom  of  suttee,  which  compels  the  un- 
fortunate widow  to  immolate  herself  on  the 
funeral  pile  of  her  deceased  husband  in  order 
to  enjoy  Paradise  with  him,  and  the  bloody 
car  of  Juggernaut,  whose  wheels  have  rolled 
over  thousands  of  benighted  heathen, — both 
these  forms  of  suicide  are  familiar  to  every 
reader  and  unfortunately  still  exist  to  some 
extent  as  recognized  institutions.  A  sacrifice 
similar  to  the  suttee  has  obtained  among 
almost  all  tribes  of  savage  Indians  and  Afri- 
cans. A  chief  when  he  died  needed  creden- 
tials for  his  proper  reception  in  the  Spirit  Land, 
and  accordingly  his  wives,  followers,  and  ser- 
vants joined  him  in  his  death,  that  a  proper 

53 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

retinue  might  accompany  him  to  the  "  happy 
hunting  grounds." 

In  China,  with  its  hundreds  of  millions  of 
people,  the  individual  is  but  as  a  grain  of  sand 
on  the  sea  shore,  and  life  is  accordingly  held 
cheap.  And  in  Japan,  until  recently,  suicides 
were  notably  common  and  favored  by  official 
sanction.  It  is  there  that  the  ghastly  custom 
of  hara-kiri  prevailed,  which,  being  translated, 
means  "the  happy  despatch."  With  all  due 
ceremony,  in  manner  prescribed  and  in  a  place 
chosen  according  to  the  rank  of  the  performer, 
in  the  presence  of  his  friends  and  relatives,  the 
victim  theatrically  plunges  the  knife  into  his 
stomach,  draws  it  across  from  left  to  right  and 
then,  with  a  prescribed  and  peculiar  twist,  pulls 
it  out  and  trails  it  aloft.  His  courage  is  ad- 
mirable ;  he  neither  wavers  nor  falters.  No 
groan  escapes  him,  but  he  stolidly  disembowels 
himself  in  as  matter-of-fact  a  way  as  one  of  us 
might  have  a  tooth  out. 

Among  modern  Christian  nations  other  than 
England  and  the  United  States,  suicide  is  by 
no  means  generally  and  officially  condemned. 
The  penal  code  of  France  contains  no  legisla- 
tion on  the  subject,  nor  the  former  codes  of 

54 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

Bavaria  and  Saxony,  and  doubtless  many  of 
the  other  nations  of  Europe  no  more  forbid  it. 

Certain  it  is  that  on  the  continent  of  Eu- 
rope suicides  are  from  three  to  ten-fold  more 
common  than  they  are  in  the  British  Isles,  and 
that  this  is  due  to  public  opinion  and  not  to 
poverty  as  a  cause,  is  shown  from  the  fact  that 
of  all  the  countries  of  Europe,  Ireland  has  the 
smallest  proportion. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  views  of 
England  and  America  concerning  suicide  not 
only  differ  from  those  of  most  other  nations, 
but  also  are  quite  independent  either  of  the 
times  or  of  Christianity. 

So  far  as  religion  supports  their  anomalous 
position,  we  would  naturally  look  first  to  the 
Bible  for  instruction  on  the  subject.  Many 
writers, —  De  Quincey,  Dr.  Donne,  Phil.  Rob- 
inson and  others — have  intimated  that  the 
Scriptures  nowhere  forbid  it.  The  ten  com- 
mandments, of  course,  contain  the  elements 
and  fundamental  principles  of  our  duty,  and  in 
them  the  lesser  wrongs  are  necessarily  forbid- 
den with  the  greater.  "Thou  shalt  do  no  sui- 
cide," therefore,  might  possibly  be  deemed 
included  in  "Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  as  lying 

55 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

is  considered  as  forbidden  under  the  head  of 
bearing  false  witness.  But  when  this  com- 
mandment against  killing  is  so  far  modified 
in  the  very  next  chapter  of  Exodus  following 
the  commandments  (c.  21,  v.  20)  as  to  allow 
a  man  in  those  days,  without  blame,  to  kill  his 
servant,  who  shall  say  how  much  the  inhibition 
covered,  or  that  suicide  is  forbidden  by  it  ? 
And  elsewhere  in  the  Bible  we  find  no  direct 
precepts  against  it.  Several  instances  of  self- 
destruction,  however,  are  therein  recorded, 
which  it  may  prove  of  interest,  briefly,  to  ex- 
amine. 

Abimelech  (Judges,  ch.  9)  is  the  first  suicide 
appearing  upon  the  scriptural  records.  He 
became  king  by  the  wholesale  murder  of  sev- 
enty of  his  father's  brethren,  and  a  few  years 
thereafter  received  the  punishment  of  his 
crimes  at  the  hand  of  a  woman.  It  was  at 
the  siege  of  Thebez,  in  a  battle  with  his  for- 
mer co-conspirators,  that  "a  certain  woman 
cast  a  piece  of  millstone  upon  Abimelech's 
head,  and  all  to  (i.  e.,  quite)  brake  his  skull." 
"  Then  he  called  hastily  to  the  young  man  his 
armourbearer,  and  said  unto  him,  c  Draw  thy 
sword  and  slay  me,  that  men  say  not  of  me, 

56 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

a  woman  slew  him.'  And  his  young  man 
thrust  him  through,  and  he  died." 

Very  like  to  this  is  the  record  of  Saul's 
suicide  (I  Samuel,  ch.  31).  In  his  war  with 
the  Philistines,  when  the  battle  had  gone  sore 
against  him  and  the  archers  had  hit  him  and 
he  was  sore  wounded,  he  too  called  upon  his 
armourbearer  to  draw  his  sword  and  thrust 
him  through,  lest,  as  he  feared,  the  uncircum- 
cised  Philistines  should  come  and  thrust  him 
through  and  abuse  him  (as  they  had  done  to 
Samson  before  him).  Saul's  armourbearer, 
however,  feared  to  do  so,  so  Saul  himself 
took  a  sword  and  fell  upon  it.  And  when  his 
armourbearer  saw  that  Saul,  his  king,  was  dead, 
he  fell  likewise  upon  his  sword  and  died  with 
him. 

Samson's  suicide  (Judges,  ch.  16)  happened 
shortly  before  Saul's,  in  his  guerrilla  warfare 
against  his  nation's  enemies,  these  same  uncir- 
cumcised  Philistines.  The  circumstances  of 
his  death,  however,  are  too  familiar  to  call  for 
repetition. 

Now  these  several  cases  of  self-destruction 
can  hardly  be  called  self-murder  or  suicide  as 
we  ordinarily  use  the  term.  All  of  them,  ex- 

57 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

cept  Samson's,  occurred  in  the  heat  of  battle 
with  all  its  terrors  and  excitement,  and,  too, 
when  each  had  already  received  his  death  blow, 
while  Samson  sacrificed  himself  to  patriotism 
and  the  vengeance  of  his  tribe  upon  its  ancient 
enemies,  quite  as  much  as  in  revenge  for  his 
own  personal  wrongs  and  tortures.  These  in- 
stances, then,  are  scarcely  in  point  and  need  no 
further  consideration. 

There  remain  but  two  cases  of  deliberate 
suicide  recorded  in  the  Bible,  one  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  one  in  the  New.  And  singu- 
larly enough,  in  one  of  those  parallelisms  not 
uncommon  to  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
(as  Samson's  birth,  for  instance,  is  so  like  to 
that  of  John  the  Baptist's),  so  both  these  sui- 
cides, Ahithophel  and  Judas,  hanged  them- 
selves after  betraying,  the  one  his  lord  and 
king,  and  the  other  his  Lord  and  Saviour  — 
that  same  king's  descendant. 

Ahithophel  (II  Samuel,  ch.  17),  belying  his 
name,  which  means  the  brother  of  foolishness, 
was  David's  first  adviser,  and  esteemed  so  wise 
that  his  counsels  were  likened  to  the  oracles 
of  God.  But  in  Absolom's  conspiracy  against 
David,  Ahithophel,  lured  by  what  inducement 

58 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

Heaven  only  knows,  renounced  his  king,  and 
went  over,  heart  and  soul  and  brains,  to  Abso- 
lom.  David's  prayer,  however,  that  Ahitho- 
phel's  wisdom  might  be  turned  to  foolishness 
in  Absolom's  cause,  seems  to  have  been  an- 
swered. For,  at  a  critical  time,  his  shrewd 
advice  and  wise  plans  for  the  pursuit  and  over- 
throw of  David,  which  would  undoubtedly 
have  insured  the  complete  success  of  the  great 
conspiracy,  were  disregarded  and  David  escaped. 

Then  we  are  told  that  "when  Ahithophel 
saw  that  his  counsel  was  not  followed,  he  sad- 
dled his  ass  and  got  him  home,  to  his  house, 
to  his  city,  and  put  his  household  in  order,  and 
hanged  himself  and  died." 

Here  was  self-murder,  wilful,  deliberate,  pre- 
meditate, not  forced  upon  the  victim  by  pain 
and  misery,  not  induced  by  a  misguided  sense 
of  honor,  nor  hurried  into  by  the  rash  im- 
pulse of  the  moment.  It  was  prompted  only 
by  chagrin,  disappointed  ambition  and  wounded 
pride.  Apparently  no  life  was  ever  given  in 
sacrifice  to  baser  passions.  It  was  such  among 
suicides  as  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  was 
among  murders. 

And  yet  the  inspired  historian  in  Ahitho- 

59 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

phel's  case  goes  on  to  make  no  comment  on 
the  crime ;  no  word  of  condemnation  follows. 
Indeed,  we  may  almost  infer  approval  of  the 
act  by  his  day  and  generation,  since  we  find  as 
the  sole  conclusion  of  the  account  that  "  he 
was  buried  in  the  sepulchre  of  his  fathers." 
No  ignominy  apparently  attached  to  his  violent 
death. 

Of  the  suicide  of  Judas  there  are  two  ac- 
counts given,  seemingly  quite  inconsistent.  St. 
Matthew  briefly  records  that  "  he  departed  and 
went  and  hanged  himself"  (Matthew,  ch.  27), 
while  the  version  of  St.  Peter,  in  his  speech  to 
the  disciples  (Acts,  ch.  i)  is  that  "he  fell  head- 
long, burst  asunder  in  the  midst,  and  all  his 
bowels  gushed  out " — a  most  improbable,  if 
not  impossible,  death. 

The  Scripture  commentators,  always  ready  to 
reconcile  the  most  conflicting  of  Biblical  state- 
ments, explain  this  by  the  assumption  that 
Judas  hanged  himself  on  the  edge  of  a  preci- 
pice, that  the  rope  must  have  broken,  and  the 
fall,  with  its  horrible  consequences,  neces- 
sarily followed.  It  was  a  saying  of  Henry 
Ward  Beecher's  that  the  angels  of  heaven, 
knowing  of  course  the  real  facts,  read  the  com- 

60 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

mentaries  for  relaxation  after  their  harp  exer- 
cises. There  is  perhaps  no  better  apology  for 
this  explanation. 

DeQuincey's  understanding  of  it  is  far  more 
satisfactory.  He  reminds  us  that  while  we  are 
wont  to  consider  the  heart  as  the  seat  of  the 
affections  and  passions  (for  which  there  is  no 
more  anatomical  reason  than  to  ascribe  the  same 
spiritual  influences  to  the  liver  or  pancreas),  the 
ancients,  with  nearer  exactness,  considered  "the 
bowels"  as  the  source  and  center  of  our  feelings, 
and  "bowels  of  compassion"  is  still  a  homely 
but  accepted  phrase  with  us  to-day.  Accord- 
ingly, DeQuincey  views  the  language  of  St. 
Peter  as  entirely  symbolical.  "Falling  head- 
long" is  but  descriptive  of  the  utter  ruin  of  his 
plans  and  hopes,  and  his  breaking  in  two  in  the 
middle,  so  preposterous  if  taken  literally,  only 
expresses  what  we  should  have  phrased  the 
breaking  of  his  heart. 

But  leaving  any  further  discussion  of  a  sub- 
ject most  interesting  to  the  curious  and  earnest 
reader  of  the  Scriptures,  we  have  only  to  note 
here  that  for  one  who  played  so  prominent  a 
part  in  the  Divine  Tragedy,  the  record  of 
Judas's  suicide  and  the  details  of  his  death  are 

61 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

most  meager  and  unsatisfactory,  and,  as  in 
Ahithophel's  case,  no  comment  or  criticism  is 
vouchsafed  as  to  how  his  age  and  times  viewed 
his  voluntary  death,  or  what  estimate  we  are  to 
put  upon  it.  Peter  denied  his  Lord — and  wept; 
Judas,  in  his  remorse,  hanged  himself.  The 
one  case,  the  commentators  might  tell  us,  was 
repentance;  the  other,  despair,  But  the  moral 
we  are  to  draw  has  not  been  set  out  very  clearly. 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  is  not  easy  to  prove 
that  the  Bible  forbids  suicide,  or  that  it  was 
discountenanced  through  all  the  years  and  area 
that  its  history  covers.  The  contrary,  indeed, 
is  not  a  violent  inference  to  draw  from  the  Old 
Testament,  since  Ahithophel  was  apparently 
given  customary  and  honored  sepulture,  instead 
of  the  ignominious  and  shameful  burial  which 
would  have  been  his  in  England  a  century  ago, 
or  the  disapproval  which,  in  one  way  or  another, 
silent  or  expressed,  would  doubtless  have 
marked  his  funeral  here  to-day. 

On  the  other  hand,  too,  we  might  quote  the 
Bible,  almost  from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  in 
proof  that  human  life  is  but  a  vain  thing,  and 
that  death  is  sweet  and  greatly  to  be  desired. 
Does  it  not  praise  "the  dead  which  are  already 

62 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

dead,  more  than  the  living  which  are  yet  alive"? 
Is  not  the  continual  refrain  of  Job  to  the  effect 
that  "the  day  of  one's  death  is  better  than  the 
day  of  his  birth"?  Did  not  Ecclesiastes, 
Preacher  and  King,  "turn  himself  to  behold 
wisdom  and  madness  and  folly"  that  he  might 
determine  as  to  the  value  of  life  and  whether  it 
be  truly  worth  living  or  no?  And  was  it  not 
the  conclusion  of  so  great  a  philosopher  that  it 
was  all  "a  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit"? 

Can  not  most  of  us  say  with  the  readers  of 
Rasselas,  that  "we  have  listened  with  credulity 
to  the  whispers  of  fancy,  and  have  pursued  with 
eagerness  the  phantoms  of  hope.  We  have 
expected  that  age  would  perform  the  promises 
of  youth  and  that  the  deficiencies  of  the  present 
day  would  be  supplied  by  the  morrow." 

We  have  had  all  this  fervent  faith  in  life 
only  to  find  that  we  have  been  cheated  in  our 
hopes;  that  its  promises  are  but  a  delusion  and 
a  snare,  and  life  itself  but  a  vanity  of  vanities, 
as  Ecclesiastes  forewarned.  And  if  it  is  so 
sore  a  burden,  and  death  so  sweet  a  rest,  shall 
not  we  hail  the  welcome  day  and  speed  its  com- 
ing? Can  we  not  arrange  for  ourselves  our 
"happy  despatch"?  'Tis  but  the  tie  of  a 

63 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

noose,  the  touch  of  a  trigger,  the  tilt  of  a  spoon. 
Why  not? 

The  usual  argument  that  suicide  is  only  the 
resort  of  the  coward,  seems  not  good.  The 
instinct  of  life  is  so  strong  within  us  all  that 
while  the  thought  of  death  is  not  unpleasant 
to  us  (as  doubtless  many  of  us  have,  more  or 
less  remotely,  thought  of  suicide),  the  doing  of 
the  act,  the  actual  killing  of  oneself,  calls  for  a 
considerable  amount  of  physical  courage,  of 
determination — "nerve."  Who  is  it  that  is 
brave?  He  who  suffers  day  after  day  with  an 
aching  tooth,  or  he  who  plucks  up  his  spirit 
and  goes  straight  to  the  dentist  and  has  it  out? 

Again,  why  in  summer,  as  statistics  show, 
are  suicides  by  drowning  so  much  more  com- 
mon than  in  winter  when  suffering  prevails  far 
more?  Only  because  in  winter  the  water  is  cold, 
and  the  would-be  suicide  of  faint  heart  is  deterred 
by  so  slight  an  extra  demand  upon  his  courage. 

No,  moral  courage  may  be  denied  the  sui- 
cide, but,  generally,  he  is  no  physical  coward. 
The  respect  wherein  he  is  a  coward  is  in  his  fear 
for  the  future,  his  impatience  of  present  suffer- 
ings, his  want  of  faith  in  himself  and  in  his 
kind,  in  God  and  in  his  neighbor. 

64 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

Here  is  an  old  argument:  consider  for  a 
moment  what  the  state  of  society  would  be 
were  a  law  enacted  allowing  us  to  destroy  any- 
one we  considered  useless,  would  not  the  lati- 
tude of  the  permission  be  absurd?  And  would 
there  be  any  difference  in  granting  us,  under 
like  conditions,  the  privilege  to  destroy  our- 
selves? The  weakness  of  the  law  would  be  in 
the  inherent  fallibility  of  human  judgment.  It 
cannot  be  left  to  any  individual  to  determine  as 
to  the  value  of  his  life,  for  so  many  compli- 
cated circumstances  enter  into  it  to  make  up  the 
sum  of  its  worth  to  himself  and  to  mankind  in 
general — it  is  so  crossed  with  the  woof  and 
warp  of  other  lives,  that  the  individual  cannot 
safely  judge  as  to  when  he  has  outlived  his  use- 
fulness even  to  himself.  It  may  be  said  gener- 
ally that  no  one  is  useless  unless  he  has  lost  the 
possibility  (not  probability)  of  recovering  him- 
self, and  this  would  suppose  such  a  complete 
state  of  utter  destitution  as  cannot  be  predicated 
of  anyone.  It  is  so  frequently  true  that  the 
darkest  hour  is  just  before  the  dawn,  and  so 
invariably  true  that,  with  God,  all  things  are 
possible. 

Again,  generally  the  suicide  is  first  of  all  and 

65 


SUICIDE  AND  THE  BIBLE 

above  all,  selfish.  It  is  his  own  pains  and  aches 
and  troubles  and  sorrows  that  he  flees  from, 
and  in  the  shame  and  disgrace  of  his  death  he 
always  makes  somebody  else  to  suffer  that  he 
may  escape  suffering.  For  no  man  liveth  to 
himself  and  no  man  dieth  to  himself.  And 
however  isolated  and  alone  a  man  may  live,  and 
however  friendless  and  undeserving  he  may 
deem  himself,  it  can  but  rarely  occur  that  he 
does  not  leave  someone  to  mourn  him,  some- 
one to  miss  him,  or  someone  at  least  to  inherit 
the  disgrace  which  is  the  legacy  of  all  suicides. 
And  where  there  is  a  single  creature  whom  we 
can  comfort  by  our  presence,  aid  by  our  coun- 
sels or  relieve  by  our  bounty — anyone  whose 
lot  without  us  would  be  one  whit  the  harder, 
then  can  we  claim  no  right  selfishly  to  leave 
him  to  bear  life's  burden  without  us. 

Though  one  may  be  doomed  to  die  in  pov- 
erty and  pain,  happy  is  he  if,  as  he  closes  his 
eyes,  he  can  bravely  smile  and  say,  with  Saint 
Paul :  "  I  have  fought  a  good  fight ;  I  have 
finished  my  course;  I  have  kept  the  faith." 


66 


A  Pretty  Girl's 
Shoe 


TG^EMININE  fashions,  from  the  time  when 
Eve,  or  Adam,  first  introduced  them,  are 
always  interesting.  Since  the  original  simplicity 
of  costume,  only  two  periods  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion have  dared  to  go  back  to  the  beginnings 
of  things.  They  did  it  "under  the  Directory" 
in  the  last  century,  when,  as  may  be  para- 
phrased, a  woman's  clothes,  like  language, 
"were  given  her  to  conceal  her  thoughts," 
and  they  are  venturing  it  in  the  present  decade. 
The  author  of  that  clever  story  cc  The  Invis- 
ible Man,"  might  write  a  sequel  about  the 
"  Visible  Woman,"  or  should  she  be  called  the 
"  Disappearing  Lady  "  ?  Time  was  when  you 
could  see  her  only  at  operas,  balls  and  dinners, 
and  even  then  you  blushed  for  her.  In  bath- 
ing costume,  oddly  enough,  the  same  girl 
blushes  for  herself.  These  days  you  can  see 
her  in  the  street  cars,  with  all  her  transparen- 
cies and  knots  of  narrow  colored  ribbons  on  a 
background  of  edgings,  which  a  man  has  to 

67 


A  PRETTY  GIRL'S  SHOE 

steel  himself  not  to  look  at.  But  she  blushes 
not  a  whit.  The  Christian  name  of  this  girl 
should  be  one  of  the  good  old-fashioned  ones 
like  "Hope"  or  "Charity "  or  better  yet,— 
"  Faith."  For  she  is  certainly  "  the  evidence 
of  things  unseen,"  if  that  is  possible  in  optics. 

However,  the  mode  of  nowadays  has  one 
great  attraction.  One  of  the  prettiest  features 
of  a  pretty  woman, — her  pretty  foot, —  was 
never  more  in  evidence.  Most  of  feminin- 
ity wear  for  street  dress  their  walking  skirts, 
or  golf,  or  rainy-day  skirts,  and  what  more  do 
you  want  to  see  in  tidy  "shoon"  and  ankles? 
And  even  down  town,  in  their  summer  mulls 
and  muslins,  there  is  a  swish  and  a  swirl,  and 
a  man  need  cross  himself,  or  cross  the  street, 
to  avoid  observing  all  sorts  of  laces  and  "  fril- 
lies" and  most  alluring  hosiery.  Doubtless 
the  department  stores  are  responsible  for  this. 
All  those  petticoated  things  which  a  man  sees 
in  their  windows,  and  at  which  he  twinkles  his 
nose,  must  be  sold  to  somebody,  and  when 
bought  must  be  shown. 

But,  apropos  de  bottes,  it  was  not  long  ago 
when  a  French  shoe  for  woman  was  a  coveted 
luxury.  To-day  the  American  woman's  shoe 

68 


A  PRETTY  GIRL'S  SHOE 

leads  the  world,  and  is  built  on  as  graceful 
lines  as  a  Cup  Defender.  Never  did  the  "Col- 
umbia" show  herself  more  trig  and  trim  and 
saucy.  The  low  shoe  for  women  may  be  de- 
scribed generally  as  "distracting,"  and  the  adjec- 
tive is  used  advisedly,  as  may  appear.  It 
glories  in  a  high  heel, — a  military  heel  they  call 
it,  and  you  may  have  a  Louis  Quinze  heel,  or 
a  modification  thereof,  if  you  please.  This 
Louis  did  some  dreadful  things  in  history,  but 
he  realized  the  charm  of  a  woman's  foot  and 
gave  it  a  heel  to  add  grace  and  height.  Let 
the  doctors  and  chiropodists  talk  as  they  please. 
What  girl  but  would  "take  a  little  pains"  to 
look  like  one  of  Watteau's  maids?  Alas!  that 
with  all  her  opportunities  the  girl  of  to-day 
may  also  buy  a  very  ugly  American  shoe,  and 
many  girls  do.  It  has  an  "extension  sole," 
so-called,  is  of  patent  leather,  and  looks  like 
a  Staten  Island  ferryboat. 

If  you  have  seen  a  lady  chicken,  a  big  fat 
chicken,  in  September,  say, —  scurrying  around 
in  the  grass  after  crickets,  bugs,  or  golf  balls, 
or  anything  she  can  catch, —  you  may  notice 
that  when  she  lifts  her  leg  her  toes  bunch 
together  and  her  foot  is  as  slim  and  tidy  as  may 

69 


A  PRETTY  GIRL'S  SHOE 

be.  When  she  puts  it  down,  however,  it 
spreads  all  over  the  lot  like  one  of  your 
goloshes,  and  the  least  you  can  do  is  to  cry 
"shoo"!  It  is  even  so  with  the  extension 
sole.  When  you  see  in  front  of  you,  on  the 
avenue,  a  dainty  dress  and  note  the  skirts  and 
petticoats  a-swirling  and  tossing  and  then  see 
below  a  flat-footed  monstrosity,  splattering  on 
the  sidewalk,  who  wouldn't  say  "shoo"  to 
that?  Not  more  foolish  is  the  ostrich  who 
hides  her  head  in  the  sand, —  or  any  veil, — 
and  leaves  her  splay  feet  exposed  to  view  and 
criticism. 

The  winsome  shop  girl  and  the  seemly  type- 
writer know  better.  They  have  also  developed 
tricks  of  tying  the  graceful  low  shoe  with  the 
military  heels,  which  are  worthy  of  encourage- 
ment. The  notion  was  advocated  years  ago 
and  now  it  is  a  fad.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
will  not  kill  it,  as  died  "  those  tassels  on  her 
boots,"  in  the  old  song  of  many  years  ago: 

The  style  I'm  sure  it  suits, 

The  Boston  girls  they  all  wear  curls 

And  tassels  on  their  boots. 

To-day's  device  is  simply  that  the  larger  the 

70 


A  PRETTY  GIRL'S  SHOE 

bow  of  ribbon  on  the  instep  the  smaller  the 
foot  appears.  It  is  very  easy,  and  if  you  can- 
not afford  to  put  in  the  best  of  silk  braid,  or 
will  not  take  the  trouble, — please,  at  least,  cut 
off  the  tags  from  your  cheap  laces.  It  takes 
away  that  slovenly  look.  Even  a  man  may 
profit  by  this  suggestion,  and  seem  more  "fit." 

There  are  other  tricks  in  this  trade  also. 
For  there  is  the  girl  in  low  shoes  with  red 
laces  and  with  white  laces.  The  practice  is 
not  to  be  commended  and  prevails  only  among 
the  young  and  crude.  They  also  tie  these 
laces  at  the  toe,  wherein  is  a  mystery. 

Of  course  the  pretty  girl's  shoe  will  come 
untied.  That  used  to  be  part  of  the  game. 
But  the  subterfuge  is  idle.  It  is  easy  to  secure 
the  bow  absolutely  with  the  "salmon  knot." 
In  the  interest  of  young  bachelors  a  descrip- 
tion of  that  tie  may  well  be  omitted. 

A  few  roguish  girls  have  dared  to  wear  with 
their  white  gowns,  white  stockings  and  a  black 
low  shoe.  Venture  it  only  if  your  feet  are 
petite,  and  then  "look  out  for  squalls!" 
Where  are  the  merry  red  shoes  and  red  silk 
stockings  of  a  decade  or  more  ago?  Someone 
sang  of  them: 

71 


A  PRETTY  GIRL'S  SHOE 

Hers  are  those  dainty  shoes,  red  as  the  rose, 
Or  white  as  lilies,  or  yet  brown  or  tan, 
Or  bright  deep  yellow  like  the  marigolds 
That  dot  the  dusty  sidewalk  till  it  blooms 
And  blossoms  like  a  brilliant  flower  bed. 

And  where  is  the  girl  who  dares  to  wear  on  a 
black  shoe  the  riotous  red  heels  of  our  grand- 
mothers, which  you  may  sometimes  still  see  in 
shop  windows  ?  Can  you  not  picture  "  Bea- 
trix" clicking  down  the  stairs  on  them?  Or 
was  it  red  rosettes  she  wore  on  her  slip- 
pers? No,  when  DuMaurier  pictured  her  in 
his  illustrations  to  "  Henry  Esmond,"  she 
wore  "  scarlet  stockings  and  white  shoes."  Her 
"  wonderfulest  little  shoes  with  wonderful  tall 
red  heels"  appear  later  in  the  story;  also  that 
she  wore  "silver  clocked  stockings,"  and  again, 
that  her  "red  stockings  were  changed  for  a  pair 
of  gray,  and  black  shoes  in  which  her  feet 
looked  to  the  full  as  pretty."  Thackeray  knew 
things  about  a  woman's  foot,  you  may  be  sure. 

A  newspaper  item  says  that  a  prominent 
actress  has  braved  the  red  heels  and  rejoices  in 
them.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  are  not  too 
high,  and  are  carried  with  circumspection. 

And  speaking  of  ribbands,  with  a  "d"  in 
72 


A  PRETTY  GIRL'S  SHOE 

them — where  is  the  demure  girl,  in  black  low 
shoes  with  black  or  white  silk  stockings,  who 
dare  lace  her  ribbands  all  up  the  ankle  as  in 
the  days  "under  the  Directory?"  I  blow  a 
kiss  to  her,  if  I  may  make  so  bold. 


73 


An  Incident  in  Book 
Collecting 


TT  is  no  mark  of  distinction  in  these  days  to 
have  books.  It  is  as  matter-of-course  as  the 
having  of  pots  and  pans  and  kettles  in  the 
kitchen.  We  buy  our  books  as  unconcernedly 
as  our  tea  or  tobacco.  The  quality  of  the  arti- 
cle bought  may  vary  with  our  purse  or  mood, 
but  the  habit  of  buying  remains.  In  this  age 
being  a  good  citizen  involves  being  a  good  book 
buyer. 

But  although  now  there  be  truly  books  for 
the  million,  and  a  library  may  be  bought  for  a 
song  at  the  dry  goods  stores,  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  college  man  and  scholar,  the  man  of 
parts  and  of  letters,  need  fill  his  shelves  in  that 
vulgar  way,  or  stoop  to  dip  from  the  fountains 
of  wisdom  with  a  common  dipper.  For  while 
to  the  plodding  student,  books  may  appear 
only  as  the  tools  of  his  craft  or  mere  vehicles 
of  knowledge,  for  him,  later  in  the  growth  of 
culture,  do  books  take  on  a  lovable  personality, 
and  become  animate  with  the  soul  of  the  author. 

75 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

And  to  him  then  is  it  given,  no  longer  to  buy 
books  but  to  collect  them.  For  the  collecting 
of  books  is  another  matter,  and  calls  for  the 
exercise  of  some  individuality  of  taste  and 
peculiar  bent  of  mind.  You  may  buy  books 
"in  sets,"  but  they  are  to  be  collected  only 
piecemeal.  You  may  buy  them  for  their  broad 
pages  or  showy  bindings,  but  you  will  collect 
them,  perhaps  indeed  with  some  regard  to  these 
qualities,  but  oftener  for  a  mere  title  page  or 
colophon,  or  the  very  simplicity  of  their  first 
paper  covers.  The  buying  of  them  is  merely 
an  everyday  incident.  The  collecting  of  them 
may  be  anything  from  a  pastime  to  a  purpose 
in  life. 

To  differentiate  again:  between  the  book 
collector  and  the  book  lover,  or  bibliophile, 
there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  and  into  it  must  be 
cast  many  a  trashy  volume  and  many  a  one  of 
gaudy  and  meretricious  show  before  that  gulf 
is  filled,  and  the  gap  bridged  over.  Nor  is 
one's  right  to  the  title  of  bibliophile  a  quality 
easily  determinable.  Who  shall  say  when  trees 
and  shrubs  lose  their  individuality  and  become 
an  arboretum?  or  a  number  of  evergreens  attain 
to  the  dignity  of  being  worthily  called  a  collec- 

76 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

tion  of  Conifers?  Even  so,  the  honor  of  being 
classed  as  a  bibliophile  comes  as  it  may,  and 
goes,  as  it  must,  only  at  the  bibliophile's  death. 

Bibliomania  may  be  considered  as  the  disease 
which  its  name  indicates.  Yet  the  progress  of 
an  individual  from  bibliophile  to  bibliomaniac 
is  so  gradual  that  it  is  only  by  comparison  of 
the  extreme  stages  that  any  marked  character- 
istics appear. 

The  exaggerated  and  distorted  love  of  books, 
however,  disease  though  it  be,  is  at  least  as 
refined  an  ailment  as  consumption,  and  as  aris- 
tocratic a  luxury  as  hay  fever. 

Now  he  who  would  be  something  more  than 
a  mere  book  buyer,  yet  hesitates  to  assume  to 
himself  the  title  of  book  lover;  who  would  fain 
coquette  with  the  bibliophile's  mistress,  and 
yet  run  no  great  risk  of  being  bitten  with  a 
madness,  let  such  an  one  choose  the  harmless 
pastime  of  collecting  the  works  of  some  partic- 
ular author  in  first  editions.  For  this  he  need 
make  no  great  pretense  to  literary  knowledge, 
nor  need  he  even  claim  to  be  a  profound  student 
and  critic  of  his  favorite.  With  the  more  truth 
that  he  call  himself  only  an  admirer  of  a  writer 
of  established  repute,  with  the  more  grace  may 

77 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

he  avoid  controversies  and  discussions  over 
that  writer's  merits  and  demerits.  So  may  he 
content  himself  with  being  on  easy  terms  with  a 
celebrity,  and  enjoy,  vicariously,  some  small 
measure  of  his  renown.  To  call  the  indulgence 
of  such  a  taste,  or  the  pursuit  of  such  an  enjoy- 
ment, a  "fad"  is  doubtless  to  slander  it.  Let 
us  consider  it  rather  as  a  literary  whimsy,  like 
a  fondness  for  sonnets,  which  in  turn  may  be 
likened  to  a  weakness  for  olives.  Such  tastes 
need  no  justification;  they  simply  are. 

Five  or  six  years  ago  the  casual  reader  of 
that  fascinating  class  of  literature,  the  English 
book  catalogues,  might  have  seen  an  occasional 
offering  like  the  following: 

"792.  Stevenson  (Robert  Louis).  Under- 
woods, FIRST  EDITION,  post  8vo,  cloth,  uncut, 
73.  Chatto,  1887." 

Some  similar  items  perhaps  followed. 

Had  this  chance  reader  been  at  all  so  dis- 
posed he  might  have  argued  with  good  reason 
that  no  author  at  that  time  would  better  repay 
collecting  than  Stevenson.  He  would  have 
been  far  wiser,  it  is  true,  who  had  bought  his 
every  published  work  years  before,  beginning 
with  that  little  pamphlet,  the  veritable  primer 

78 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

of  Stevenson— "The  Pentland  Rising."  But 
that  would  have  been  anticipating  and  not  col- 
lecting. You  cannot  collect  an  author  until  he 
has  published  at  least  a  goodly  number  of  vol- 
umes. I  choose  my  qualification  of  number 
advisedly,  because  its  determinate  value  must 
necessarily  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  col- 
lector. 

Up  to  the  year  1889  there  had  been  pub- 
lished some  nineteen  well-known  volumes  of 
Stevenson,  covering  almost  every  field  of  litera- 
ture from  history,  through  poetry,  to  romance. 
His  coinage  had  been  stamped  sterling  by  the 
best  critics,  and  given  general  circulation  among 
the  best  readers.  Whatever  he  had  made  was 
good,  and  the  possibilities  of  his  future  work 
might  enhance,  but  could  not  impair,  the  actual 
literary  work  of  the  past.  Moreover,  from  the 
collector's  point  of  view  be  it  said,  almost  all 
of  his  works  had  appeared  in  one  volume  form. 
At  that  time,  therefore,  it  was  certainly  safe  to 
collect  Stevenson;  and  strange  enough,  too,  it 
was  not  too  late.  For  even  the  English  book 
dealers,  ready  as  they  are  to  create  a  new  taste 
when  they  can  no  longer  prick  a  jaded  one,  to 
advance  the  price  of  Caldicotts  and  Thomsons 

79 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

when  you  have  got  tired  of  Cruikshanks — even 
those  keen  English  book  dealers,  I  say,  had 
hardly  then  thoroughly  waked  up  to  the  value 
of  Stevensons. 

My  first  three  or  four  volumes  were  bought 
from  one  of  the  catalogues  that  I  happened  to 
see,  at  modest  prices  enough;  though  it  must 
be  admitted  that  the  prices  of  new  acquisitions 
became  "fancy"  very  quickly.  But  seven  or 
eight  volumes  were  soon  secured  at  fair  rates, 
and  then  I  began  to  give  some  heed  to  my  buy- 
ing. Two  or  three  of  the  volumes  were  cer- 
tainly rather  shabby  looking,  and  what,  in  first 
innocence,  I  had  looked  upon  as  the  hall-mark 
of  a  first  edition,  namely,  an  appearance  of 
having  been  read  not  wisely  but  too  well,  began 
to  appear  as  a  considerable  blemish,  which  not 
even  the  deft  use  of  bread  crumbs  could  efface. 
It  was  then  that  I  learned  that  "uncut  edges," 
in  book  catalogue  parlance,  and  uncut  wisdom 
teeth,  in  a  book  collector,  might  be  more  than 
merely  an  association  of  ideas;  and  that  a 
book  advertised  only  as  "uncut"  is  quite  differ- 
ent from  one  "unopened."  Then  also  was  I 
thoroughly  taught — "for  nothing  refineth  the 
young  like  experience" — that  a  volume  de- 

80 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

scribed  as  a  "library  copy"  is  not  one  that  you 
want  for  your  own  library.  For  the  yellow 
label  of  Mudie  or  of  Smith  and  the  laying  on 
of  hands  by  their  unsanctified  patrons  will  have 
sadly  desecrated  that  sorry  volume. 

But  these  were  only  small  stumbling  blocks 
in  a  pleasant  pathway,  and  hardly  gave  me 
pause.  This  maxim,  however,  may  be  here 
noted  for  the  benefit  of  others,  that  "he  who 
would  collect  must  also  cull."  A  second-hand 
book,  thoroughly  bethumbed  and  dogs-eared  is, 
like  a  dirty  pack  of  cards,  fit  only  for  the  fire. 

My  real  trials  of  collecting  began  with 
"  Edinburgh  Notes."  I  had  never  happened 
upon  even  the  small  reprint  of  it,  and  was 
always  sorely  tantalized  to  see  the  advertise- 
ment, flaunted  upon  the  first  page  of  almost 
every  new  acquisition:  "By  the  same  author, 
An  Inland  Voyage,  Edinburgh  Notes,"  and 
the  rest  of  the  list.  A  copy  must  be  speedily 
acquired.  None  were  offered  at  any  price  in 
the  catalogues,  nor  were  any  forthcoming  in 
answer  to  correspondence  with  the  various 
booksellers,  and  further  discouragement  ensued 
when  a  New  York  dealer  said:  "Why,  if  I 
had  a  copy  of  Edinburgh,  I  would  build  a  col- 
Si 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

lection  around  it."  In  despair,  an  advertise- 
ment in  the  Canadian  papers  was  even  ventured, 
although  the  mere  whistling  for  it  would  have 
been  cheaper  and  quite  as  ripe  in  results.  But 
of  course  it  came  at  last,  thanks  to  an  English 
bookdealer  of  the  gentler  sex,  whose  name  shall 
be  nameless  only  because  advertising  etiquette 
forbids.  It  must  be  admitted  that,  from  a  col- 
lector* s  point  of  view,  it  was  a  sad  disappoint- 
ment; and,  were  it  in  line  with  the  rules  of  the 
game  (so  to  speak),  I  should  own  to  a  decided 
preference  for  the  second  and  smaller  edition. 
The  first  is  but  a  reprint  from  "The  Portfolio," 
and  its  clumsy  form  greatly  mars  the  general 
symmetry  of  the  other  volumes  as  they  are 
grouped  upon  the  shelves.  It  is  therefore 
generally  condemned  to  go  and  stand  in  the 
corner  like  a  gawky,  misbehaved  schoolboy; 
and  one  is  inclined  to  banish  with  it  "The 
Memoirs  of  Fleeming  Jenkin" — I  stay  my 
hand  at  that  only  when  I  stop  to  think  how 
highly  he  was  esteemed  by  Stevenson.  Far  be 
it  from  me  to  impugn  the  literary  value  of 
these  last  named  cumbrous  volumes,  but  surely 
they  consort  sadly  with  that  little  post  octavo, 
"The  Dynamiter;"  and  the  chance  juxtapo- 

82 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

sition  upon  the  shelf  of  "Jenkin"  and  "  Jekyll," 
cheek  by  jowl,  would  be  an  incongruous  one 
indeed. 

About  this  period  of  collecting  several  items 
balked  me.  Doubtless  because  "Treasure 
Island"  was  so  universally  popular  with  all 
readers,  was  it  difficult  to  secure  a  perfect  copy; 
and  that  evil  associations  corrupt  good  manners 
— if  ever  so  slightly— is  proven  by  my  "Trav- 
els with  a  Donkey."  Happily  no  reproach 
may  be  cast  upon  my  "Virginibus";  but  "The 
Dynamiter"  (otherwise  absolutely  unscathed), 
judging  from  the  appearance  of  a  graze  in  his 
back,  narrowly  escaped  being  hoist  with  his 
own  petard.  These  were  minor  woes,  however, 
and,  like  a  tumble  at  football,  only  a  part  of 
the  game. 

After  the  finding  of  "  Edinburgh,"  the  most 
serious  trouble  arose  when  one  of  my  English 
correspondents  informed  me  of  his  discovery  of 
"a  large  paper  copy  of  'Ticonderoga,'  pri- 
vately printed  for  the  author  in  1887,"  and 
bound  in  vellum.  ("Ticonderoga,"  it  is  per- 
haps needless  to  say,  was  subsequently  reprinted, 
and  included  in  the  volume  of  "Ballads,"  pub- 
lished in  1890.)  This  rarity  I  was  told  could 

83 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

be  secured,  at  a  price,  if  promptly  cabled  for. 
If  that  excellent  book-finder  should  chance  to 
read  these  lines,  be  it  known  to  him  that  he  is 
now  fully  absolved  from  the  sin,  with  which  I 
then  charged  him  in  my  own  mind,  of  invent- 
ing, instead  of  discovering,  this  book;  for  of 
course  I  secured  it,  and  it  was  even  as  stated. 
But,  having  yielded  to  the  allurements  of  one 
large  paper  copy,  I  fell  an  easy  victim  to  others 
that  were  providentially  discovered.  "The 
New  Arabian  Nights,"  "Men  and  Books," 
"Memories  and  Portraits,"  "Underwoods" 
and  "Father  Damien"  were  all  soon  obtained 
in  spotless  white  covers,  and  with  margins  broad 
and  liberal  to  extravagance. 

Of  these  volumes  "Memories  and  Portraits" 
and  "Underwoods"  only  seem  to  be  veritable 
first  editions.  "Men  and  Books"  bears  an 
imprint  dated  six  years  later  than  the  first  ordi- 
nary issue,  and  "The  Arabian  Nights"  only 
purports  to  be  "a  new  edition."  Whether  it  is 
quite  fair  for  publishers  to  perplex  and  confuse 
the  collector  with  new,  large  paper  copies  of  old 
issues,  it  is  perhaps  a  waste  of  time  to  consider; 
since,  except  for  the  seekers  after  first  issues, 
the  handsome  Edinburgh  edition  will  doubtless 

84 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

satisfy  every  reasonable  desire  of  Stevenson's 
admirers,  in  the  way  of  paper,  margins,  and 
clear,  bright  type. 

The  large  paper  copy  of  "Father  Damien" 
is  truly  a  beautiful  book,  printed  throughout 
on  vellum  by  Constable,  and  containing  a  fine 
portrait  of  its  subject.  This  advertisement 
precedes  the  title  page:  "The  following  pages 
were  originally  given  to  the  public  in  The 
Scots  Observer  of  May  3  and  May  10,  1890. 
On  March  27,  being  two  weeks  later  than  the 
posting  of  the  copy  for  the  use  of  the  Observer, 
the  first  edition,  a  pamphlet  of  32  pages, 
printed  at  Sydney,  N.  S.  W.,  was  privately 
issued  by  the  author  in  the  way  of  presentation 
copies  to  his  friends  and  acquaintances.  This, 
the  second  edition,  is  limited  to  thirty  copies, 
and  is  issued  only  to  subscribers.  The  third 
edition,  which  is  published  simultaneously,  is 
offered  to  the  public."  In  this  case  it  would 
seem  that  the  second  edition,  which  was  practi- 
cally simultaneous  with  the  first,  is  decidedly 
preferable  to  the  original  rough  pamphlet;  unless 
one  were  fortunate  enough  to  have  received  the 
latter  from  the  author  himself.  Yet  this  same 
modest  first  edition,  of  which  only  twenty-five 

85 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

copies  were  printed,  has  recently  been  offered 
for  sale  for  the  equally  modest  sum  of  fifty 
dollars. 

Hardly  had  my  English  correspondents  fin- 
ished with  their  discovery  of  large  paper  edi- 
tions, than  they  began  to  rediscover,  and  took 
down  from  their  dusty  shelves,  or  drew  from 
their  dark  hiding  places,  the  forgotten  publica- 
tions which  Stevenson  had  written  in  his  youth. 
It  was  then  that  the  "Pentland  Rising"  was 
snatched  from  oblivion.  It  was  written  when 
Stevenson  was  but  a  boy  of  sixteen,  and  pub- 
lished in  1866.  This  most  unpretentious,  little 
green-covered  pamphlet,  of  only  22  pages  — 
smaller  even  than  the  "Father  Damien" — was 
sold,  to  those  fortunate  enough  to  have  the 
chance  to  buy,  for  from  five  to  ten  pounds, 
according  to  the  greed  of  the  purchaser.  Now, 
given  a  printer  of  only  ordinary  skill,  in  com- 
bination with  a  book  dealer  of  ordinary  care- 
lessness, or — if  you  please,  and  if  it  may  be  — 
of  extraordinary  cupidity,  and  there  appears  no 
good  reason  why  a  farther  supply  of  these  two 
first  editions,  Damien  and  Pentland  (limited 
to  a  reasonable  number  of  course)  should  not 
be  produced.  'Twere  as  easy  as  lying,  it  would 

86 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

seem;  and  as  safe  as  flattery;  while  the  profits 
would  be  very  handsome.  Let  us  pray,  how- 
ever, that  as  the  cobbler  should  stick  to  his 
last,  so  may  the  counterfeiter  confine  himself 
to  his  graving  tool;  and  let  us  fondly  believe 
that  no  printer  will  ever  be  so  corruptible,  or 
book  dealer  so  unduly  avaricious.  "  The  Pent- 
land  Rising"  is,  of  course,  of  great  interest  and 
value  to  the  lover  of  Stevenson,  as  showing 
the  first  windings  of  that  stream  of  wondrous 
diction  which  later  flowed  so  freely  and  fully 
from  his  pen.  It  is  easy  enough  to  prophesy 
backwards,  but  surely  no  one  but  the  author 
of  "Virginibus"  would  have  so  happily  turned 
some  of  the  sentences  at  the  conclusion  of  that 
"  page  of  history." 

My  next  acquisition  was  even  a  more  impor- 
tant one,  being  the  four  and  only  numbers  of 
The  Edinburgh  University  Magazine,  issued  in 
1871,  and  happily  preserved  by  one  of  his  fel- 
low students,  "by  sheer  accident,"  as  he  writes. 
This  publication  was  edited  by  Stevenson,  with 
the  aid  of  three  fellow-students,  he  himself 
contributing  more  than  his  quota  of  its  con- 
tents. He  has  given  a  full  account  of  its 
happy  birth,  short  lived  career  and  sudden 

87 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

death,  in  the  article  entitled  "  A  College  Mag- 
azine," which  appears  in  "Memories  and  Por- 
traits"; and  any  admirer  of  his  may  rightly 
rejoice  in  the  possession  of  these,  his  first  pub- 
lished, serious,  literary  efforts.  For,  of  course, 
"The  Pentland  Rising"  was  at  best  a  mere 
boyish  effusion.  It  is  reported  that  Stevenson 
smiled  gently — yet,  one  can  imagine,  with  just 
a  curl  of  irony  in  the  corner  of  his  mouth — 
when  he  first  heard  of  the  monetary  value  that 
had  been  put  upon  "The  Pentland  Rising." 
But  it  is  also  said  that,  a  few  years  ago,  he 
himself  offered  five  pounds  for  a  set  of  the 
magazine.  His  first-born  weakling  would  seem 
to  have  been  less  dear  to  him  than  the  child 
of  his  young  manhood;  and  "Treasure  Island" 
he  appears  to  have  regarded  and  cherished  as 
the  first  offspring  of  his  literary  virility.  An- 
other item  secured  about  the  same  time,  was  a 
collection  of  some  twenty  articles  by  Steven- 
son, taken  from  Eraser's,  Cornhill  and  other 
magazines,  between  the  years  1874  and  1881. 
Most  of  these  subsequently  appear  in  the  col- 
lated volumes  "  Familiar  Studies  "  and  "  Men 
and  Portraits."  But  five  of  them,  I  believe, 
have  never  been  reprinted,  until  in  the  "  This- 

88 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

tie"  edition:  "The  Story  of  a  Lie,"  "On  Style 
in  Literature,"  "The  Morality  of  the  Profes- 
sion of  Letters,"  "On  Fables  in  Song"  and 
"The  Day  After  To-morrow."  It  is  hard  to 
understand  why  any  of  these  should  have  been 
denied  the  honor  of  a  second  publication  in 
book  form.  "The  Story  of  a  Lie,"  which 
appeared  in  the  New  Quarterly  for  October, 
1879,  while  it  may  not  be  the  best  of  Steven- 
son^ wonderful  tales,  has  the  self-same  breezy 
spirit  which  gives  life  to  them  all,  and  is  too 
good  a  story  to  go  astray. 

Magazine  articles  may  perhaps  be  consid- 
ered hardly  fair  game  for  the  collector,  yet 
some  of  these  appear  to  be  not  only  first,  but 
exclusive  issues ;  and  many  a  contribution  to 
literature  so  appearing  may  be  lost  to  the 
world  in  general,  and  become  as  rare  as  if  it 
had  appeared  only  in  an  edition  of  fifty  copies. 

In  the  collecting  of  Stevensons,  a  question 
arises  which  is  rather  an  embarrassing  one  for 
those  not  quite  sure  of  the  collector's  code. 
It  is  as  to  the  priority  in  edition,  in  such  works 
as  "  The  Wrong  Box,"  and  other  subsequent 
volumes,  which  were  apparently  first  pub- 
lished in  the  United  States,  and  subsequently, 

89 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

though  not  simultaneously,  issued  in  London. 
The  advertisement  quoted  from  "  Father  Da- 
mien"  would  seem  to  answer  the  question; 
yet  so  hard  is  it  to  overcome  the  collector's 
prejudice  in  favor  of  English  books,  that  he 
who  would  err  on  the  safe  side,  will  do  well  to 
keep  both  editions,  until  the  matter  shall  have 
been  adjudicated  by  some  one  who  may  speak 
as  one  having  authority  and  not  as  this  humble 
scribe. 

As  compared  with  some  other  authors,  the 
collecting  of  Stevensons  has  an  especial  charm. 
For  while  it  is  quite  within  the  bounds  of  pos- 
sibility, and  the  far-reaching  powers  of  the 
book  finders,  to  get  together  all  of  his  pub- 
lished works,  yet  so  many  of  them,  compara- 
tively speaking,  were  published  in  small 
editions,  or  privately,  or  in  perishable  form, 
or  for  purposes  of  copyright  only,  that  one 
person  alone  may  hardly  hope  to  secure  a  com- 
plete collection  of  his  published  writings. 
Nevertheless  the  alluring  possibility  of  so 
doing  remains  to  the  zealous,  as  witness  the 
appearance  of  "Father  Damien"  in  New  York, 
already  referred  to.  And,  at  all  events,  the 
chasing  of  this  enticing  rainbow  will  have 

90 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  BOOK   COLLECTING 

proved  as  pure  a  joy  and  as  innocent  a  rec- 
reation as  Izaak  Walton  ever  found  in  his  gen- 
tle art. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


50m-6,'67(H2523s8)2373 


3  2106  00210" 


•• 


